The Enigmatic Timekeeper
by Silken Petal Waning
Summary: (New version! Chapter 4 up now!) The Division is beginning. An ordinary woman with an extraordinary bequest becomes entangled in the frayed ends that the Valar left behind, to learn to become what they need her to be in order for two worlds to survive. T
1. Prologue: Drifting Apart

  Author's Note:  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the new (hopefully) improved version of The Enigmatic Timekeeper.  I am Silken Petal Waning, and will be your hostess for the course of this story ^_^.   The PG-13 still applies to most areas of the story, but considering American ratings don't appear to have a between, there was no suitable rating to convey who can and cannot view this tale, in some areas an R rating may have to suffice.  This prologue is PG-13.

  Well, here you are: the new improved story.  I was not satisfied with the original in that it moved too fast, with too many questions left unanswered and it was beginning to turn into a tedious soap opera.  In this, I've incorporated more of the tale on both sides, and we have villains!  Yay!  Maybe you'll be able to guess whom, but I'm not going to reveal the identities - well, not yet anyway.

  So here is a short prologue (mostly concerned with our heroine, her brother, her cat, and those annoying stalkers) to ease you into the scheme of things as they begin to occur. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it!  Please, wipe your feet by the door and, if you're feeling charitable, leave a cookie or a review on your way out.  Chapter one will hopefully be posted soon.

  Comments, questions, I'm sure you know the drill 0_^.

  Disclaimer:  Even if I were the reincarnation of Tolkien, nothing branded with his name would belong to me.  To my utmost knowledge I am not the reincarnation of anything.  In simple terms, I don't own half of the things in my story ^_^.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  _Depthless, a soothing emptiness, a place that did not exist, a nothingness sustained by Time and yet beyond its reach.  He stood, suspended, drifting in the timeless void: a well of knowledge, a pool of existence.  It was everything, this abyss between.  And he - he was all, a surging tide that bore love and hate and joy and grief: every emotion and sense infused his veins, etched in his soul.  This void belonged to him, as he belonged to it.  This nothingness was born of him, he begotten of it._

_  His arrival had been belated.  The destruction had already begun: dismally he beheld the unravelling of the seams, undoing years of hard toil and sacrifice; the slow decay of his own being as the division began.  Time was sundering.  The process had to be halted._

_  Desperately he swept into the anarchy, haphazardly seizing the pieces as they fell, directing them to order.  But his command was no longer heeded.  No sooner had success been achieved than it came apart once more: autumn leaves stripped from a rotten bough, fluttering to the ground, irrevocable.  Dead.  He knew frustration and despair, a master whose servants had turned upon him in his hour of need.  The efforts involved in his exertions were attenuating him.  His strength was depleted, insufficient for the inestimable task before him._

_  Inside influence would not work.  And it was beckoning again._

_  So close ... so tempting ... _

» Who are you, Changer?  Where are you? «__

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The pallid rays of a grey morning sluiced through the gap in the curtains, falling like a ghostly blade across her forehead.  Rain tapped gently at the windowpane, a soft soothing lull.  A pedestal fan hummed quietly in the corner, teasing her tousled fringe with a cool breeze.  Immersing herself in the quietude, she sought sleep again, tossing restlessly in the blankets she had rucked in last night's heat.  Late summer's oppressing humidity dampened the air, hard to breathe and causing sweat to prickle discomfortingly down her neck.  The last vestiges of a fleeing dream brushed against her consciousness, sweeping stealthily past her fumbling grasp as she tried to recall it.  It had been so real, almost remembered - but it had not been her memory.  Surely not. ...

  Her door hung ajar.  Blearily she stared at it, as a sliver of fluorescent white light and the hiss of water on ceramic tiles drifted through.  The shower door swung shut.  'Shit!' the occupant cursed, and wet feet made a hasty exit.  Her door was swung wide open, admitting the shadowed form of her brother, arrayed in a towel and with beads of water sliding down his skin to pool at his feet.  'Sean, don't drip on the carpet,' she admonished in exasperation, resigned to the fact that the peace was now extinct.

  'Did you turn the hot water off last night, Jenny?' he asked accusingly, slicking his copper hair out of his freckled face.  'Because it's bloody freezing!'

  'No.  Just go and press the reset button,' she said, heaving a sigh.  Sean mumbled something inaudible, gripping his towel firmly about his waist as it made to slip away.  Jenny rubbed her misted eyes.  The digital clock informed her that it was 5:30 a.m.  Groaning, she took up her spectacles and perched them upon the bridge of her nose.  Restive tresses hung unkempt about her face. Traces of her original copper colour were inconspicuously peeking through the brown dye.  Impatiently she waved her matted locks aside and left the inviting dimness of her bedroom.

  As she shuffled sleepily into the kitchen, resplendent in her old Winnie-the-Pooh nightshirt and pinstriped pyjama bottoms, a sinuous something curled on a black vinyl lounge chair uncoiled lazily, leaping lightly to the floor and running to her with a plaintive meow.  'All right, all right Milo.  I haven't forgotten your breakfast,' Jenny informed the ginger tabby as it twined lovingly about her legs.  

  As the water boiled in the kettle and the bread toasted Sean emerged from the bathroom, having completed the morning's primping session to his satisfaction.  Jenny had given up on trying to persuade him to be a little less liberal with the hair gel.  In her personal opinion he looked like a badly pruned cactus, with a crown of gravity-defying spiky red hair poking from his head.  But then, could anything save a new fad dissuade a nineteen-year-old from following what was considered the latest fashionable trend?  'Did the hot water work?' she asked him conversationally as he searched in the pantry for the coffee.  'Look on the third shelf, next to the pasta.'  

  'It did when I hit it,' Sean replied, sliding the terracotta sugar pot across the marble bench and fetching a mug from the cupboard.  Jenny rolled her eyes.  The curtains were drawn back, admitting the watery light of a miserable day.  Milo meticulously rubbed a well-licked paw over his face, belly sated, and returned to his cosy cushion on the chair, fashioning his personal nest to his liking before settling down with a purr.  Sean rudely disturbed him by thrusting his hand under Milo's bedding to retrieve the remote control for the television.  The cat gave him a reproachful glare and sauntered out of the room, making for Jenny's bedroom with his fluffed tail flicking haughtily behind him.

  Jenny prepared the morning's repast of peppermint tea and toast smothered with raspberry jam, seating herself at the table and idly browsing last week's newspaper.  As the weatherman announced that showers could be expected to continue until Friday evening with a possible storm on Saturday, Sean joined Jenny at the table.  The sky visible through the tall buildings of the city blushed with a faint tinge of rose, a subtle hint of the morning hiding behind dreary rain clouds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  _Hark to it.  Cannot you feel its call?  So potent - so ... powerful.  I want it.  I want her__.  You will bring her to me, the Outworlder woman._

'Yes, sire, but might I be so bold as to inquire how you intend for me to fetch her?'

  _The Way Between Worlds, you fool._

'But it is zealously guarded!  The Timekeeper - he bides there.'

  _You fear him?_

'Well, no; but he has no love for me.  And even if he suffers my passage, how am I to persuade _her _to accompany me?  Like as not, she will refuse.'

  _Do not think to gainsay me.  A Snake-Charmer such as you must have certain methods of persuasion.  Wear a facade.  Slip through.  Dispose of him.  Do whatever you must; but I must have it and her here, whole and unharmed.  I will have no further quarrel with you.  Leave before my disposition changes.  It is highly probable that my change in mood will not sway in your favour._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  A fine veil of misting rain laced the outside air.  Jenny dried the obscured lenses of her glasses on her jacket as her hair fought against the firm-hold hairspray.  Sean climbed into the driver's seat of their shared red Holden Barina and beckoned to her.  'Hurry up,' he said.  Jenny threw her shoulder bag at him as she clambered in and fastened her seatbelt.  Sean dumped the bag on the back seat.

  Wandering in thought, Jenny found herself transfixed on the rhythmic movement of the windscreen wipers as her brother drove.  Sean tapped the steering wheel as he hummed uncertainly to the song on the radio.  

  A glowering red light impeded them at an intersection.  Jenny twisted around in her seat of a sudden, driven by impulse.  The hair on the back of her neck prickled like - like someone, or something, was watching her.  Rain trickled down the glass at the back, fogging everything beyond.  It was hard to see if any suspicious characters observed her from a vantage point.  The feeling subsided.  Jenny frowned.  _Stress_, she concluded wearily.  But then, there it was again - that disquieting sensation of being appraised by unseen eyes.  Casting quick glances over both shoulders, Jenny settled uneasily back in her seat when Sean requested for her to sit still.  It seemed to take forever for the green light to flash, and the traffic to move again.  Almost as if everything had been suspended in time.

  But that was impossible.

*

  Across the street the little green neon man flashed, proclaiming the road safe to cross.  As men and women jostled past him, he looked askance at the Barina once more.  A glimpse of blue peeked from beneath his dark sunglasses, incongruous with the hazel that flashed as he turned upon his heel and strode away.

*

  The smooth heels of her boots slipped on the asphalt of the car park, treacherously slick with water.  'I'll see you later,' Sean said, pocketing the car keys.  'Wait,' Jenny said quickly, touching her brother on the shoulder.  'Let's have lunch,' she suggested.  'It's been ages since we did anything family-orientated.'

  'Okay,' Sean conceded, his expression torn between a bemused frown and an amused smile.  'How about Gloria's at, say, twelve-thirty?'

  'Alright.'

  'Good.  I'll see you at lunch then.'  He offered her a brief wave as he hastened for the backdoor of his workplace: a twenty-four hour general store, the brick posterior of which provided the perfect canvas for young graffiti artists to commemorate their presences or love lives, discordantly decorated with scrawled messages such as 'Jet wuz ere '96', 'Markie 4 Alli', and 'Kay's a FAG.'  Jenny reciprocated Sean's gesture and shouldering her bag, stepped out onto the pavement already alive with pedestrian traffic.

  Awkwardly weaving through the living labyrinth she shouldered her way through the crowd, excusing herself to an obviously decorous young man dressed impeccably in a navy business suit.  He frowned at her as she bumped into him and clumsily slid past with a hasty apology, but flawlessly continued the conversation he was holding via mobile phone.  Pushing her insistently untidy hair out of her brown-flecked face, Jenny clutched her bag close to her as though it would buoy her up in the maelstrom of people.  She checked the antique watch on her left wrist, bequeathed to her by her great aunt Muriel.  No doubt it would attract a hefty offer from an avid collector, but to Jenny it was priceless.  Delicate lines danced about the ebony frame, worked with seams of emerald, almost like some foreign writing system.  It was a beautiful timepiece, wrought with skill and a great deal of patience.  According to it, the time was now a quarter to eight.  She was already late.

  A youth studiously pushed past her, laughing as she stumbled.  Fortunately she did not lose any of her work folders, and rewarded the young churl with an expressive hand gesture for his trouble.

  _Bastard.  Now, where are those tax records...?_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The alley was cluttered with refuse carelessly discarded through the years.  It reeked of rodents and vegetable matter in various stages of degeneration.  Soggy cardboard slumped limply against concrete walls scarred by years of vandalism.  Choked dustbins threatened to vomit their contents on a street speckled black with old chewing gum.  The razor edges of shards of broken glass winked in the disheartened sunlight.

  A decrepit door stood despondently in the far wall.  The blue paint had chipped and peeled over time, succumbing to the elements with no hope of repair.  The building had been abandoned long ago because of structural faults, and was now supposedly empty, obsolescent.  The faded gold letters on the grimy glass read "McKinley & Co. Quality Traders Est. 1854."  Slender fingers furtively pried apart the dusty wooden venetians shuttering the dirty window.  

  Kneeling, the newcomer plucked further fragments of rotten wood from his trousers, having set his foot through the worn floorboards.  No matter: a frayed fragment of carpet he had found lying by a rusted sink had soon patched that problem.  He could see nothing through the fouled glass of the window and let the blinds slip back into place.

  The door creaked open a fraction, rusted hinges protesting.  Grey eyes flickered in brief appraisal of the outside world, and the aquiline nose wrinkled in distaste as he withdrew into the dank dimness of the decrepit McKinley headquarters.

  'I have gained the Outworld,' he announced to dust motes swirling about his head.

  _Good, good.  And the Timekeeper?_

He smirked.  'He was not present.  I stole the index and found my own way through.'

  _Ah, excellent.  Your progress is pleasing, Snake-Charmer.  Now, find the Outworlder who currently has possession of that which I covet.  It must not be allowed to fall into his _hands, for his absence can only mean that he, too, has been alerted of its existence.__

  It was good to bathe in his master's approval, to be regarded with such high esteem by one of such high rank.  Like a dandled infant basking in the adoration of proud parents, he smiled.  'I shall find her,' he promised.

  _Yes, you will.  Because if you do not, there will be great gratification for me in strangling you with your entrails, and leaving you to hang by them as carrion for the crebain_.__

Scowling, he crept once more the door, and, when assured that the street was empty, slipped into the open air.  With a pale hand he casually flicked lank black hair from his languid, long-jawed countenance.  Utilising a much-practised caution, said Snake-Charmer emerged carefully into the open air: the insidious predator taking up the hunt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  'You're late.'  Sean accosted his sister with this accusation as she dropped wearily into the opposite chair.  She closed her eyes for a moment, savouring the breath of the air conditioning upon her perspiration-beaded brow.  'Busy.  Network crashed,' she offered by way of quick excuse.  Sean merely set a menu between them and began to peruse it at leisure.  Jenny shook her head and picked up her own.  As tantalising and exotic as some of the dishes on offer sounded, she read the various names without appetite.  Her stomach had been performing somersaults all morning, ever since that feeling - the one of being watched.  And it had returned to trouble her after a transient reprieve.

  'Aren't you going to order, Jen?'  Sean's voice broke through her reverie.  Returning to reality she noticed a waitress had appeared beside them, eyes upon her and with a pen poised expectantly above her notepad.  'Oh, um, I'm not really that hungry; but I'll have a peach and rose tea with honey, please,' Jenny said.

  'How many teaspoons, love?'

  'Two thanks.'

  'Right.  Won't be long.'

  Lunch was the meal that coffee shops and cafes benefited from the most.  Today, however, the noon-time crowd frequenting Gloria's had diminished, comprised only of Jenny and Sean, an elderly couple seated in a corner sipping tea, four young women chatting animatedly over cappuccinos and muffins in the opposite booth, and a lonely man wearing sunglasses and reading a newspaper at the table closest to the entrance, wisps of steam curling from the cup at his left elbow.

  'Empty,' remarked Sean.  'Mmm,' Jenny hummed in agreement.  The sweet aroma of peaches laced with a fragrance of rose crept into her nostrils.  The waitress had returned and set their orders on the table.  'Right, loves; enjoy,' she smiled warmly and bustled away.

  Sean picked contemplatively at his calamari, head resting in hand, elbow on the table.  Jenny stole a few chips.  'Oi!  You said you weren't hungry,' he mock-protested.  Jenny merely simpered at him as she ate the spoils.

  The man seated by the door gave the two a brief glance, drained his coffee, and returned the newspaper to the stand.  A glint of green flashed through the dark lenses of his sunglasses as he decorously combed a hand through his raven hair, and fishing a mobile phone from his pocket merged into the flowing crowd and vanished.

  As though a great encumbrance had been removed from her shoulders Jenny felt a great sense of relief.  She realised that the onerous foreboding had gone.

  The gaze that had been unsettling her all morning had been averted: she was no longer being watched.  Was it merely happenstance that this relief had occurred with the departure of the dark-haired diner?

  _Yes, just coincidence ...  Those chips look good - yoink._

'Hey!  Get your own lunch.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  _'Utilise your surroundings.  You are not of this world.  Manipulate it, shape it to suit your purposes.'_

_  'When did you learn that?'_

_  'A long, long time ago.  What does not fit you can set aright, because your existence is not dependant upon anything here.  The pattern is different: you are not immersed in the current, you are outside of it.'_

_  'I do not exist here, then?  What of you?'_

_ 'I am immersed within the current of both worlds: my existence is incumbent upon each pattern, for I do not belong to any sole flow.  If they tear, I will share that fate.  They cannot be divided without terrible devastation ensuing, a veritable cataclysm to extinguish all life.  That is why I need you: here, you are the Catalyst.  I am not within my element, not the Changer here.'_

_  'But - I do not know how to be a Catalyst!  How can I be an influence on Time's machinations?  You are the Keeper, not me.'_

_  'Please.  I need you.  They need you.  I cannot do this alone.'_

_  'Very well.  I will try to do this thing, but only because you ask it of me.  Teach me to be a Changer.'_

_  'Good.  But first, there is a more pressing matter that must be attended to.  The second Catalyst must be found.  The only one who can change _your_ world.  And I have my suspicions…'_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	2. A Disruption to the Continuum

  Author's Note:  I hope you all had a Merry Christmas (or Happy Chanukah or any other special occasion celebrated in late December), and have a Happy New Year as well.   

  For those of you not familiar with the M rating, it means that it is recommended mature audiences view the following content.  Certain scenes may be found to be disturbing, so as a precaution I thought it best to jolt the rating up one notch.  

  But here is the first chapter: I managed to strive through the obscurity of Writer's Block to produce it.  Blame lack of inspiration if it's not up to scratch 0_~ (New wink!  Yay!).  

  And so, the plot thickens … ^_^

***

_The Enigmatic Timekeeper_

_Chapter 1:_ _A Disruption to the Continuum_

_Rating: M_

__

***

  An amber ray of Saturday morning sunshine shed a benign glow on the anarchy.  Rolls of torn-up carpet rested in a crude stack in one corner.  The thick layer of dust that had accumulated over years of neglect was disturbed from rest on unpolished wooden floorboards.  Mould and mildew long sheltered in the dark, damp sanctuaries found beneath linoleum, in crevices in the plasterboard, and under tiles were revealed to the heat and dry of summer.  The washing basket overflowed with stained sheets and towels and pillowcases.  Furniture and various other homely accoutrements had been shoved haphazardly in any rooms with space to spare.

  Perhaps the Spring-cleaning was slightly belated, but the were only so many colonies of dust bunnies she could abide.

  Arrayed in faded denim overalls bedecked with spatters of paint, Jenny disdainfully surveyed the apartment laid bare.  Pieces of what appeared to be psychedelic wallpaper, in all likelihood hailing from the nineteen-sixties, peeked in hideous incongruity along the walls.  She had worried at it with a steam iron, but it had refused to leave the residence it had decorated, albeit tastelessly, for possibly the last thirty years.  

  With an unnecessary amount of noise Sean retrieved the stepladder from the broom cupboard.  When it did not unfold to perfection straight away, he cursed it and, as men do when their superiority is shown up by metal, blamed poor quality and set boot to it.  Jenny halted him in his physical remonstrations, and showed him how to unlock the catch to allow the ladder to slide open.  'I tried that,' he muttered, and began to pry the lids of the paint-cans open with a screwdriver.

  'So.  Tiger's Eye in here, I think,' Jenny informed him, gesturing the area of the living room.  'And Catskill in the bathroom.  Oh, and Vanilla Slice in my room, and you wanted the Sky Boat in yours, yes?'  Her brother grunted in reply, conveying a complete lack of attention to his sister's fantasizing as he stirred the gelatinous paint.  Milo, exercising a feline's curiosity, ambled over and sniffed the mustard-coloured Tiger's Eye.  Falling abruptly back on his haunches, the orange tabby rubbed vigorously at his face with a forepaw, trying to clean away the paint that had adhered to his pink nose.

  'Oh Milo,' sighed Jenny, picking up her tomcat.  'Do you think I should lock him in my bedroom until we're finished?'

  'Mmm,' said Sean, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.  'I'll leave him out then,' Jenny decided, setting Milo back down on the floor and briefly fondling his ears.

  'Mmm,' her brother repeated tonelessly.

  'Mum and Dad are coming for dinner.'

  'Mmm ... What?'

  Jenny laughed as Sean's expression made a swift conversion from impassive to horrified.  'You weren't listening to me,' she admonished him.  'Do you honestly think I'd be inviting people to come over to this?  Anyway, I can't even remember the last time Mum and Dad were over.'

  _Take that, you hideous wallpaper.  Yuck, those colours are disgusting!  The task of continuously dabbing the brush into the paint and transferring it to the walls was tedious, but rewarding as Jenny watched the last remnants of the apartment's hippy-chic years vanish beneath a coat of paint.  Besides, it distracted her from the unease and anxiety that had been plaguing her since Monday.  That unrelenting sensation of being watched._

  Sean's abrupt cry of, 'Milo, no!' brought her musings back to the present.  She was in time to hear a loud _clang_, and the terrified hiss of her tomcat.  An orange blur vanished up the short hall, leaving a trail of matching paw-prints in its wake.  Unfurling like the petals of a water lily, the upset paint blossomed on the newspaper.

  'Ah, shit.  Stupid yellow fuzz ball,' Sean grumbled, clambering from his perch on the step-ladder, picking up the paint can and scraping up as much of its spilt contents as he could.  'He's not a stupid yellow fuzz ball,' Jenny retorted, incensed, climbing off her stool.  'You had the can teetering on the edge of the stepladder.  Of course it was going to fall!'

  Sean did not offer further provocation, his silence saving them from a heated argument.  He was staring, transfixed, at something near his feet.  Haltingly he reached for the object of his fascination, wiping away a layer of paint.  'Look Jenny,' he murmured, and held it out to her.  'It's a photo of Muriel, I think.  There's someone else there too.'

  'What?  Where'd that come from?  I've never seen it before - oh no, there's paint all over it!  You keep going, I'll try and clean it up.'  Jenny tentatively took the proffered photograph and retreated into the bathroom.  Taking up a tissue she carefully began to clean away the mustard-hued mess.

  A buxom young woman, the black-and-white Muriel smiled joyfully up at her great niece.  Folds of white silk - gathered at intervals with roses of creased ribbon - cascaded from a bodice worked over with a pattern of pearls.  Expensive lace spilt from collar and cuff.  And beside her, a young man escorted her by the elbow.  He was elegant and charming in a black tuxedo, with a white rose slipped into the topmost buttonhole.  Even captured on film his beauty was poignant, his grace flawless, his eyes piercing.  

  _Oh - her wedding day ... _

  His loving gaze and adoring smile were meant only for her, the beautiful bride resting her hand upon his arm.  Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle they fell into place, complimenting one another perfectly, fitting together seamlessly.  Like it was meant.

  Jenny found herself smiling back at her photographic great-aunt, gently touching her beaming face.  So much happiness, so much emotion and love was conveyed in that simple picture, captured forever in black-and-white.  And then she turned her attentions to him.  An incomprehensible mystique hung about him, but his very strangeness was somehow distantly familiar.  Tentatively Jenny stroked the tip of finger against his image; the great-uncle she had never met.

  But that moment could only ever have been ephemeral.  As she dabbed again at Sean's unexpected discovery, Jenny felt an inexplicable welling of sadness.

  She had never seen her great-aunt smile like that, never beheld any true expression of joy or pleasure from the languid, elderly face, so unlike the elated young woman in the photograph.  Almost as if the Muriel Jenny had known and loved, and the Muriel of the past had been different women segregated by time.

  The story that Jenny and Sean had been told as children was that their great-uncle had perished mysteriously - the circumstances were never known, they said - far from home.  He had been working, but when Muriel expected him in the evening, he had not returned.  A search party had been issued, and a body eventually uncovered beneath the eaves of a forest in a game reserve not far away.  The details had been much too gruesome and distressing to recount to children, and how he had met such an odious fate was open to interpretation.  It had been Muriel's painful task to identify him, before he could be taken home for a proper farewell.  She had never again been herself after the grievous incident.  That, anyhow, was the only explanation that Sean and Jenny had ever been offered.  All who had held knowledge of him had been unwilling to part with it.  All who had held knowledge of him were now long deceased, and so curiosity had been forced to submit to the mystery.

  Jenny on occasion visited his resting place - a hillside plot beside which Muriel had later been laid to rest - to trim the grass or replace wilted flowers.  As though somehow there were answers hidden within the engravings, she would often run her hands over her great-uncle's headstone, examining the words commemorating the life and death of the mysterious young man Orlando Graywood.

  Brushing aside a single tear that suddenly trickled down her cheek, Jenny clutched the photograph to her breast and then slipped it into the safety of her bedside drawer.

 At last the first step towards completion of the renovation was finished.  From the early hours of Saturday to the now late eve, the apartment had suffered the complexities of a frenetic makeover.  The result certainly brought out a better side to the tiny two-bedroom unit, and, to Jenny's utmost satisfaction, not a trace of the terrible psychedelic wallpaper had been allowed to show.

  Shafts of darkening light pooled beneath the window, as the sun westered and the darkling cloak of night overswept the firmament.  Stepping back from the wall, the D.I.Y decorators admired their handiwork.  'See?  I told you that colour would look nice in here.'  Triumphant, Jenny lorded her righteousness over her paint-splattered brother.

  Sean rubbed his nose and scrutinized briefly.  'Yeah, alright, it looks okay,' he conceded with the air of a professional interior decorator, 'but I still reckon that honey-wood colour would have looked better.'

  'Oh, admit it.  I was right, you were horribly wrong.  I am the queen of interior design.'

  Sean offered her a look of adolescent indignance.  Jenny inspected the thus-far successfully renovated section of the apartment for the umpteenth time.  Sean heaved an exasperated sigh, inured to Jenny's feminine thoroughness for detail and yet unable to understand its purpose.  'I'm going to take a shower,' he announced, and wandered up the hallway.  Muttering, he promptly began to pull Jenny's painstakingly folded manchester out of the linen cupboard, questing for a towel.  The discarded items he left piled on the floor as he vanished into the bathroom, much to his sister's annoyance and disdain.

  'Sean, you're bloody useless,' she informed him through the closed door.  Milo, however, had already sauntered over to inspect this veritable treasure-trove of amusement, and burrowed into a sheet, hooking sharp claws into an old sheepskin rug as he seemingly tried to murder it.  One by one Jenny plucked his retractable brambles from his sadly already deceased plaything, and Milo found himself carelessly tossed aside by an irritable mistress.  Evincing a feline's inherent haughtiness, Milo sat with his tail meticulously curled about his paws, watching Jenny refold several sheets and rugs and pillowcases through narrowed eyes.

  'Hello, what's this?'  Bemused, Jenny squinted into the semi-darkness.  A tiny scrap of paper peeped from within the folds of an old tablecloth, apparently dropped there by accident.  Reaching in, she drew it into the light, readjusting her spectacles to see it better.  The hand it was written in was alien to her, long and in violent cursive, obviously scribbled in great haste.  Letters blended as if uncertain of their place within a word, merged into a mess of black ink through which the message could just be descried:

  _Through portal.  Index gone.  Please contact at 0413 525 440.  Sorry I was not there yesterday, traversed back.  Maps have been burnt..  Will see you later, if can be at Gate tomorrow evening.  Must make haste: he sent through new hunter; Twins now guarding Gate.  _

  It was signed off but the paper seemed to have come into contact with water, and the name was an illegible splotch of ink.  Jenny thought she could make out the letters F, R, and S.  Surely Sean was a little too old to play at such childish riddles?  Well aware that she would never have her brother fully deciphered, for he was as unpredictable as sand in wind, Jenny set the strange note aside and decided a cup of lemon and ginger tea with honey was deserved.  At least before they began to rearrange the furniture.  Enough irritation had been expended merely moving it so they could begin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  'Hello, Lea's phone.'

  'Ah, a good morrow to you Bauer.'

  'Well, well, it is nice to know that you still live.  Greetings and salutations, Graywood.  I've been wondering what had become of you, with your going missing like that.  Where are you?'

  'Exiting the Portal.  The index is gone and-'

  'What?'

  'Ouch!  Pray, speak not so loudly: my ears are still recovering from your woebegone experiments.  As I was saying, someone has come through recently.  And left a hole in the floor, as I discovered when I fell into it.'

  'But - who besides we here has knowledge enough to traverse the Bridge safely?'

  'I know not, my friend; and as dearly as I wish I could offer you that assurance, it was not one of us who used it.'

  'No-one can just fortuitously stumble across the Gate and pass through it!  They would be consumed!'

  'I know, I know.  That is why I called.  I worry, Lea.  And with all the caffeine currently swimming in my system I cannot rest or think coherently.  But I do know one thing: unauthorised knowledge in the wrong hands could prove disastrous.  And I do not think these particular hands intend to use their knowledge for good.'

  'Well, I - what was that?'

  'If you are referring to the yowl, that was a stray cat.'

  'I thought you said something?'

  'No.  That was the man I walked into.  And it is probably best if I refrain from repeating such - profanity.  But I think I can safely say that I've never heard so many nasty four-letter words shouted in one breath.'

  'Oh.  Have you been afforded an opportunity?  You know what I mean.'

  'Not yet, but I shall anon if fortune is kind.  It is more a lack of time that hinders me.  I passed by yester eve; they were not home.'

  'I clove to my word.  You must cleave to yours.'

  'Please, refrain from offering me another useless rede.  Those I have in plenty.  I was audience to a lecture from the twins when I happened to emerge as they were preparing to immerse.  Never will I attempt a traverse when those two are abroad again.  There are only so many hours in a day I can spare...'

  'Oh, poor dear.  I extend my most heartfelt pity.'

  'Spare me the sarcasm.  Have you any other useful information to contribute to our discourse?'

  'Not in particular - say, have you heard aught from Forest lately?  He has been unusually quiet recently.'

  'Yes, he has been strangely quiet.  He has not troubled to contact me either.  But never let his silences fool you, oft has his mood been fey since - Lea!  _Dîn_!'*

  'What?  Why?  Hal-'

  'Shh!  _Ethir lhaw lasto._  _Abathrabeth.  __Namarie.'**_

  '_Namarie…'_

  Long pale fingers slid the receiver back into its cradle, as the conversation was hastily ended, the two speakers at last conscious of an uninvited presence.

  So.  They comprehended their danger now.  It had taken realization of the eavesdropper's presence long enough to dawn, although it would have been preferable to have remained concealed.  While he rebuked himself for miscalculating the acuity of their perception, in retrospect he had to admit that it was not without value.  Unfortunately the time had been too short for him to be privy to exchange of valuable material; though from what idle words had been exchanged they had unwittingly offered him their greatest weakness.  The coterie had dispersed.  They were not working together, but operated as solos.

  _Fools._

  A smug smile twitched pale, thin lips.  Snake-Charmer patted the item concealed in his pocket.  With the index, he could steal away with the Outworlder and her precious possession, and retreat through the Portal.  And if, as he suspected, the Timekeeper had abandoned the Way Between Worlds to seek their mutual quarry, then he could lock those pointy-eared meddlers outside of their time, rendering the Portal inaccessible to them.  Segregated from their familiar current, deterioration would be swift.  They would linger and languish; Keeper, Catalyst, and all.  The woman could share that fate when her usefulness was all but diminished.

  _Oh yes, he would be very pleased with you…_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  * Silence

  ** Spy ears listen.  Converse later.  Farewell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Indicators flickering, a black sedan drew alongside the young man intent on flagging it down.  Wearing a small smile, the driver unwound the window.  'Hail Greywood,' he greeted the familiar figure stooped on the side the road.  Greywood waved the kenning name aside.  'Forget that Taure,' he said quietly.  'We have already been found out; it is useless to shelter beneath such flimsy guises.'

  Taure heaved a sigh, the pleasant expression of welcome succumbing to bleak despair.  'Get in,' he suggested, gesturing to the passenger side seat.  'I don't trust these streets at night.  No word from Legolas?'

  'Nay.'  Greywood's voice was disquietingly soft as he clambered into the vehicle, and his posture strangely stiff.  Even bathed in the orange glow of overhead streetlights, his face appeared pale and taut with worry.  Taure reserved questions for when they were enfolded in the constant flow of traffic.

  'Haldir.  What is it?'

  'I know where he is.  I know where Legolas is.  I could sense it last night.'

  The words were forced by sudden panic.  'The Gate,' Haldir said, drawing a deep inhalation to soothe racing nerves.  'He is at the Gate.  I think he is - trying to make amends.'

  'Valar damn that impetuous fool!' Taure exclaimed, and in the throes of rage slammed his hands on the steering wheel.  Several laughing teenagers on the street started at the sudden blare of a car horn, a few expressing their displeasure with futilely waving fists and certain gestures.  Taure glanced briefly in the rear vision mirror.  Haldir folded his lips, striving to maintain a cool demeanour.  Wisely he refrained from speaking lest his own temper fray.

  'You know he is only trying to fulfill his duty,' he said at length, sufficiently recovered to continue discourse.  'You cannot forbid him that which he feels is necessary on his part.'

  'I never forbade him.  I - warned him against it.  For the nonce,' Taure muttered.  'He cannot control it properly yet.  His efforts are noble, but I fear - I fear that they will kill him.  And he is growing weak.  He has been here too long, but he will not listen to me.  I have argued with him, but his stubbornness and pride are not going to relent any time soon.  I -'

  'Taure, calm yourself,' Haldir admonished.  'You are speaking too fast for me to follow.  Now, hearken to me.  No, do not argue; be silent and let me talk.  Legolas is not a child to be fended from danger with an elder's cautions.  He knows fair well the risks involved, as he understands what consequences may result from any reckless action.'

  'To others, perhaps.  But he puts no thought into the circumstances, or what may happen to him.  We are not separate, Haldir, not to an extent where one will not be missed, where we can carry on without one individual piece.  No one can be spared from this task.  We are a whole: either we function together, or not at all.  And in the case of the latter, we fail and we die.  There will be no convalescence for the world should that happen.  It will tear apart.  Everything ends.  Everything.  _He_ wins.'

  Haldir paused a moment in silent contemplation.  He had been well aware of what would happen should their efforts go to waste, but to hear it spoken so bluntly by another who intimately shared that peril offered him a new perspective.

  'Intervene,' he suggested, to be taken aback by the sudden flashing of Taure's eyes in the dimness, the savage grin that adorned his face.

  'Oh, I intend to intervene, Haldir.  I intend to.'

  The passenger side window unexpectedly exploded in a shower of glass.  Taure cursed as Haldir uttered a sharp cry of pain.  He had clapped a hand to his shoulder.  Blood ran in steady rivulets between his fingers.  'Bullet,' he gasped.  Taure stared at him in horror.  The sudden distraction lapsed his concentration on the road.  The warning shriek of a horn alerted them of a more immediate danger.  A blinding glare was thrown into their faces.  But they were helpless in their terror, unable to apply any effort to ward off the impending as they hurtled towards the oncoming vehicle.

  _STOP! ... STOP! ... STOP! ... STOP!  _

  The sudden cry flickered through the air, almost lost.  Taure braked as Haldir's white-knuckled hands gripped the rest behind his head in desperation, the bullet wound in his left shoulder forgotten, his eyes shut tightly so he need not watch the horrific playing out of the inevitable.

  Taure looked up.  His wild eyes met those of the driver in the other car.  He saw his own emotions mirrored there, and the dismay at the hopeless situation, unable to back away, unable to stop it.

  The two vehicles converged with alarming speed.  Blood spattered the windscreen before Taure's eyes - was it his?  The side of his head collided with the dashboard.  He was vaguely aware of Haldir, and of the terrible scream that fled into the firmament before consciousness succumbed to emptiness, and he was falling away into shadow.

  _NO! ... NO! ... NO! ... NO! ..._

'Brother,' he breathed, and was lost.  

  _Stay quiet brother ... ther ... ther ... ther, ... I am coming for you ... you ... you..._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Crouching on a balcony on the thirteenth floor of apartments, the watchful hunter had been mindful of his prey.  The vantage point had been flawless, the trajectory perfect, the moment opportune.  With a light breath across the smoking barrel of his weapon, Snake-Charmer hoisted himself onto the balustrade, secured the rifle into the shoulder holster and with the nimbleness of a sure-footed nocturnal creature fled into the darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The car keys were often a point of contention between brother and sister.  Jenny had triumphantly snatched them from the hallstand and stood, waving them teasingly out of reach of Sean, who swore at her and made paltry efforts to grab them.  He was already preoccupied with ensuring his towel remained fastened.  Milo watched from the small hollow he had forced into the cushion of the armchair. 

  'Come on Jen, be fair,' Sean pleaded.  'I need to go to Red's tonight.  We're studying.'

  'Studying what, the football?' Jenny sneered derisively.  'You can study here.  I have to pick up some tax file records from work, and maybe get some dinner because I'm not cooking tonight.  Now run off and play with your hair gel or something.  Or maybe you could even clean your room, and rearrange the furniture!  Wouldn't that be fun?'  She pinched his cheek.

  Sean snorted and pushed her hand away, slicking his fringe back from his eyes.  'Bitch,' he muttered over his shoulder as he retreated into his room.  He moodily slammed the door, and then seemed to have reached the peak of his tantrum and drifted into quiet sulking.  The angry discordant strumming of a guitar exploded from behind the closed door; Jenny heaved an exasperated sigh and victoriously departed.

  The streets were strangely empty.  The sea of bitumen stretched almost undisturbed, wandering throughout an unusually serene city.  Jenny idly dismissed it, attempting to tune the radio but encountering either static or the brief flickering of radio stations that she did not approve of.  She eventually gave in and lifted her hand from the dial, settling it on the steering wheel.  It seemed almost unbearable, without even music to distract her from the potency of the sensation, and the awkward prickling at the back of her neck.

  _Go away! Her mind screamed with frustration.  A sudden sharp pain flitted across her clouded awareness.  She had been chewing her fingernails.  Shaking her head she lowered her hand.  Impulsively she lifted her chin, searching warily.  Had she imagined that movement?  She must have.  There were few creatures that could negotiate the balustrade of an apartment block some twenty stories high, she assured herself.  This paranoia was insufferable.  She was afraid that she had begun a spiraling descent into madness, drifting away from sanity.  _

  Glancing to the right, she recognized the youth sweeping the street outside of Sean's workplace, the twenty-four hour general store.  Dave raised his head, catching sight of her.  Seemingly shy, he hesitantly raised a hand to offer her a small wave and a smile.  He immediately resumed sweeping with his head bowed when she did not return the gesture.  But it was not that she had not cared; it was that in her frenetic state she regarded the store as a landmark, signifying that she was almost at her destination.  She could grab the tax records and go; toasted cheese would be good enough for a meal tonight.  The encroachment of her privacy, the breach of her sense of security, would hopefully remit when obstructed by the solid walls of home.

  It came suddenly and softly, like the faintest breath of wind seeping through a partially open window.  Save that it had form.  And words:

  _Who? ... who? ... who? ... who? ..._

Like a tendril of smoke it curled on the edges of her hearing, echoing, laden with meaning, cautious.  The edge of the whisper was bleared, as though heard through a dusty cloth.  Jenny started.

  _Jenny ... ny ... ny ... ny ...  _

  The murmur assumed familiarity, seeming to smile with pleasure at its recognition as it danced throughout her mind.  She felt as if she was losing control.  Her head spun, as if her body had severed its anchorage and she was floating.  Inwardly she screamed in terror.  'Who are you?' she shrieked into the nothingness.

  _Changer ... ger ... ger ... Trust me ... me ... me ... _

It wove about her, catching her up in its web.  It pulsed as though with a heart beat, an expression of life.  She was cradled in warm arms, strong and gentle.  A curious touch fondled her face briefly - what was this?  She struggled.  As abruptly as it had seized her it relented.  She fell back into the physical world, the faultless influx of returned consciousness a cold shock to her system.

  _To me ... me ... me ... me ..._

  The whisper sighed and faded into silence.  Jenny swept a trembling hand across a sweat-bedewed brow, thoroughly shaken by this paranormal experience.  And yet, she felt compelled.  Why not trust it?  Why not go to it?

  She pulled the Barina into the gutter, and sat awhile to gather herself together.  She was tired from an arduous morning.  While contemplating the day's events and trying to force sense into them, she struggled to restrain her unkempt brown-dyed locks into a hair band.  Nothing was wrong.  Her mind was beginning to wander, that was all.  She was suffering from stress, her brain had been overtaxed and was beginning to become incoherent due to fatigue.  It made sense.  Even so, Jenny risked an illicit dash across the street, prayed there had been no law enforcers about to witness, and unlocked the side door to her work and keyed in her identification code.

  The security guard greeted her genially.  She gave him a hasty smile and bob of the head, trying to stem her panic as she stepped into the elevator.  The cubicle blocks were like a disquieting labyrinth in the darkness.  Jenny found her way to her desk, snatched up the document folder, and then ran for the car, unwilling to bide in any place a second more than was necessary.

  Home.  At last.  It felt as though hours had slipped by, while she had been suspended helplessly, spinning uncontrollably above reality.  A cup of peppermint tea to calm her nerves, a quiet evening spent in front of the television, and a restful sleep would put much in order.

  Something exploded in the near distance.  She knew that sound.  Glass.  _A window_, she thought with relief.  _Probably some kid playing with a ball indoors.  Children these days ..._

Smiling absent-mindedly, lost in a childhood memory of an incident involving Sean and his cricket bat, it did not immediately register that the yellow light dancing across her vision was not a figment of her imagination.  Snapping back to reality, she screamed in horror, frantically slamming a fist on the car horn.  It did little to dissuade the vehicle speeding towards her to veer away from an impending collision.  She slammed her foot down upon the brake pedal.  'Oh, shit!' she wept in terror.  'No, please, no!'

  _STOP! ... STOP! ... STOP! ... STOP!_

  There was a moment when she seemed to drift, when her wide eyes met those of the driver, and shared a gaze of mutual horror.  But only a moment.  The horrible screech of buckling aluminium, the acrid smell of burning rubber, the cataract of shattered glass, the burning strain of the safety belt, the deluge of ebullient emotions all merged into one horrible inescapable scene played out before her.  For a split second there was a furore of pain and the sickening metallic scent of blood.  An agonised scream tore from a man's throat, doors slammed, panicked voices pounded against her dulled hearing in dimly roaring waves.

  _NO! ... NO! ... NO! ... NO! ..._

  She thought someone grasped her arm, shook her.  Colours pulsated irregularly before her eyes.

  _Changer ... ger ... ger, ... with me ... me ... me ..._

Her vague awareness was suddenly benighted, overtaken by an impenetrable darkness that invaded from all corners of her mind.  The tenuous anchorage was foiled by the strain for freedom.  With him.  Yes.  With him.

  _With me ... me ... me ..._

  A soft touch brushed by her face.  

  Everything was gone.


	3. Pointyeared Meddlers

  Author's note:  Ah, CSI, Melintalle, queenieb – so I'm not a lost cause after all! ^_^.  Thank you for being especially supportive.  Yes, another month, another chapter, but perhaps the size may explain the delay in updates.  So here's chapter two (technically).  Hope you enjoy!

  Disclaimer:  I am not Tolkien.  To my utmost knowledge I never was Tolkien.  I just like to colour inside his lines ^_^.  I rest my case *bows humbly*.

***

_The Enigmatic Timekeeper_

_Chapter Two: Pointy-Eared Meddlers_

Rating: PG-13 

***

Late afternoon sunlight dappled the little woodland path, dancing through lightly rustling greenery.  The promise of fair weather had thus far held, so much the better for their errantry.  The stifling warmth of late summer proved a hindrance, but, mounted on their stolid little ponies, Master Meriadoc Brandybuck and his close cousin Thain Peregrin Took took a steady pace through the Old Forest on the eastern borders of Buckland.  Though still renowned as a fell place of malignant trees, of late the malevolence of leaf and bough towards living flesh had abated, now quiet, as though holding its breath, awaiting some momentous event.

  Merry considered the wax seal of the scroll he had been entrusted with.  As a hobbit of high importance, it was only proper that it should be acknowledged with tasks befitting his status.  Although there was often a time when he felt disgruntled, since highly important tasks tended to draw him away from the comforts home and hearth.  The overnight sojourn in Bree had proved restive, and folk, Big and Little, were beginning to 'talk'.  And this particular 'talk' was precisely what they had been trying toward away from gossiping tongues.

  Pippin looked forward to a quiet respite at the merry Bywater inn of the Green Dragon.  All this talk of Gates and Keepers and Catalysts would certainly seem less lofty when discussed over the rim of a flagon.  Folk paid little attention to withdrawn patrons there; perhaps they could afford some peace.

  'Well, he said they were coming back today,' Merry informed his cousin musingly.  'But apparently things went askew.  Curious happenings, if you will.  So I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this here letter.  Take it to the Mayor, I suppose.

  'I for one am not going to spend another fortnight out there again.  They can take their own messages.  I'm a Master, not a messenger.'

  'Too many bad memories out there.  Why they want to go and make any more is beyond me,' said Pippin quietly, admiring the shafts of gold spilling through gaps in the canopy.  'And it's all a bit queer if you ask me.  Mad, the lot of them.  I don't know who in their right mind would want to go, well, Over There.'  He gave a disdainful snort.  'Like Mordor all over again,' he declared.  'It was founded by the same evil, you know.'

  'Shh!'  Merry hissed warningly, casting a wary glance into the surrounds.  'You don't know how many ears people have got all over the country.  There's already words being spoken in Bree that shouldn't be; so there's no good in being careless with your words and springing more rumours up all over the countryside.  News will wait until they come back.  And people don't much hold with Elvish "magic".'

  He gently nudged the round belly of his Rohanian mountain pony Stybba, coaxing his mount to quicken pace.  Pippin sighed resignedly, thoroughly wroth at the mysteries and intrigues that were forever pushing him out of his door.  There was one word that sprang to his mind that summed up all this new trouble perfectly.

  Elves.  

  _Pointy-eared meddlers…_

*

  'Oh my!  What bad luck ... will there be a delay?'

  'Well, as to that we're not certain - as far as we've heard, no: they come back tonight.'  Merry tapped the side of his nose knowledgeably.  'Funny happenings is all,' he told the fretful Mayor Samwise.  'Cars, you understand.'

  'Cars?'  Sam's tea threatened to leap over the brim of his cup as he lifted it with a trembling hand.  'Never much held with "cars"; evil machines they are.  Horseless carriages indeed.

  'But - how much longer is it safe for them to stay?  Oh dear, it's all beyond me.'

  'The Shipwright says he'll clear the way for them this evening,' Pippin said, attempting to placate Sam by placing a hand on one taut shoulder.  'And if they don't turn up he'll get word through and find out where they are.  They know how to handle themselves - this isn't the first time queer things have happened Over There, you know.'

  'Yes, but I don't trust that Taure fellow,' Sam said savagely, shrugging Pippin's hand away, refusing comfort.  'Got a strange feel about him, that one.  I don't like the way he's forever prancing off and then turning up again; as tricky as smoke in wind, he is.  Not saying anything against his manners, he's as nice an Elf as your ever likely to meet; but I - I find myself wondering things when he's about.  And you can't judge a tater by its jacket, as my Gaffer used to say.  No matter how pretty a jacket it wears…'

  He looked lost, and cupped his hands about his teacup as though the warmth could ward away misery.  'In fact, I like him very little,' he admitted quietly.  'And I don't rightly know why.'

  Over the table, Merry and Pippin exchanged a knowing glance.  Through secret means, they did know why, although it was not information properly acquired.  Or with permission from the withholders.

  But then, only Time would tell.  Only Time.

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

  _The prison of misshapen metal groaned its discontent as men sought to force entry with any implement to hand.  The incomprehensible drone of milling onlookers hummed through his aching head.  Trapped.  Trammelled in a collapsed cage.  _

_    Cruel wakefulness had stirred him to a haze of confusion and agony.  Injuries vied viciously for attention.  The stench of exhaust fumes and spilt petrol, of blood and smoke and oil was unbearable.  Every breath shook irregularly within him, painful and difficult.  A single flicker of thought suddenly gave birth to an icy terror.  With an effort he turned his head, managing to clench the fingers of his right hand, to move his arm and enfold within his trembling clasp the left hand the man beside him._

_  It was warm, but horribly lax.  Half-lidded grey eyes stared, expressionless, fixed on emptiness, confining nothingness.  A rivulet of crimson trickled from partially open lips.  Like a ghastly scarlet flower a creeping tide of blood had blossomed on the left shoulder.  One hand still hung limp over the headrest, flung there instinctively in a futile effort to find any anchorage, seeking security as fate bound them in doom's fetters.  In disarray the golden filaments of hair framed a bloodless countenance._

_  Distress._

_  He attempted to reach across and shake his disquietingly quiescent companion.  But his legs were caught fast.  He could not move.  'Oh, Elbereth, no ... Haldir, please - Haldir?  No, do not do this to me!  We fail without you!  We fail and we die!'_

Something painfully constricted her wrist.  She tried to pull away from it, but it had attached itself firmly, strangling her forearm like a parasitic vine.  The scene was dim, as if viewed through misted glass, familiar and yet so distant ... what was happening?

  _Frantically he tried to free himself.  It yielded little success save to almost overwhelm him with a deluge of pain.  Despondently he slumped forward, grief burning his eyes, blearing his already hazed vision.  The beat of his pulse thundered in his aching head.  His body trembled in vehement protest of such treatment.  Briefly he considered the other driver.  Was he or she dead?  Dying?  Was it his fault?  _

 In dismay she tried to wrest the tightening band from her arm.  It was filling her with foreboding, and an acute discomfort she was certain did not belong to her.  A soft hum had invaded.  A voice.  But the words were formless; she could not make any sense of them.  She struggled to understand.  

  But there was no comprehension, and no salvation.  Only pity for the man unable to extricate himself from the mangled wreckage of his car, sorrow for the horrific death of his companion, curiosity over the state of the other driver, puzzlement at the event.  And then everything faded.

  Again.

  » Who are you, changer?  Where are you? «

  She found something, clutched it.  It seemed to notice her, as a man might notice an insect on his shirtsleeve, and it regarded her in that way.  It prodded her, then feigned ignorance, shrugged her away and left her to fall, spinning, tumbling, helplessly into the gaping void.  

*

  Pale light shone gold through closed eyelids.  A cool breeze drifted occasionally across her forehead.  Shards of coherent thought foundered lethargically, sinking suddenly beyond recall as soon as she sought them.  Something like wet sandpaper roughly caressed her cheek.

  Memory came flooding back unexpectedly, as though somewhere within the dull tranquillity of her empty mind a wall gave way beneath the pressure.  The car, the driver, red light, blood, voices, pain, distress, darkness.  Jenny flung herself upright, rucking the blankets in fresh panic.  Her wrist!  In horror she tore the strangling thing from her arm and threw it blindly, chest heaving.  Muriel's bequest, the ornate watch, fell to the carpet beside the oscillating pedestal fan.

  Milo immediately ceased his licking of his mistress' cheek and fell from the bed in sudden surprise, giving a shocked yowl and then disappearing down the hallway.  Dazed and confused, Jenny peered owlishly at her surroundings.  This was not the bed she had expected to wake up in.  In good sooth she had not expected to wake up at all.  She rubbed her bleary eyes, her mind sluggishly working to place things in order and sort them out.  Her fingers brushed lightly against her brow.  And touched an irregular welt of flesh.

  Stitches.  Aches and pains awoke in an instant, complaining in a choir of agony.

  She felt nauseated.  'Sean?' she called uncertainly, her voice cracking.  'Sean?'

  Dishes clattered.  Muffled footsteps on carpet sounded from the hall.  The door was flung wide and her brother came leaping anxiously into the room.  'Jen?  Oh thank God!' he exclaimed, and threw his arms around her in an unconscious effort to convey his relief.  'How do you feel?  Is anything sore?  Can I get you anything?'

  Jenny held up a hand, unable to digest Sean's tirade of questions.  She touched a hand to her stitches.  Sean mistook the gesture as a question.  'Yeah, you had a pretty nasty cut,' he said softly, the right side of her bed yielding to his weight as he sat down.

  'What happened?  I - I remember a car, driving on the wrong side of the road.  We were going to crash; I was scared out of my wits - I honked at it, but it kept going.  And then - then I think we hit, and there was blood and broken glass and - and people, flinging doors open and running out into the street.'  Unable to control it, Jenny burst into tears and dropped her head onto Sean's comforting shoulder.  'I was so scared, I thought I was going to die!' she wept into his shirt. 

  Sean was staring at her in inexplicable bewilderment.  'What do you mean?' he asked, and a slight hint of amusement presented itself behind the concern.  'You didn't hit any car...'

  'But - no!  I did, I saw it all!  I felt the crash, and saw the driver's eyes ...  I heard someone scream.  And - and the other one ... I think he died.  But I was there - I saw it!  I did!' Jenny insisted, gazing stricken up into her brother's bemused face.  Sean gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder.  'I think, Jen, that you were dreaming,' he informed her.  'There was a bad accident last night, yeah; but you weren't in it.  Dave called me.  He said that you were driving, and then suddenly you went all still and fell onto the wheel and set the horn off.  And then you hit a light pole and gashed your forehead.  I think you were a bit concussed when we took you to the hospital in Dave's car.  But the nurse said you were lucky.  No broken bones, just a few badly pulled muscles and a sprained wrist the doctor told us, and then you got stitches and we brought you home to rest.

  'The car got towed - I think it's a little bit beyond repair.'  He heaved a weary sigh.  'Good thing we paid it off last month.  I knew we should have had it insured.  Looks like its public transport until we can afford a new one,' he said heavily.  'Want some tea?' he offered belatedly.

  'Yes, please,' Jenny accepted faintly.  Sean rose carefully and left with an unnecessary caution, as if afraid he would somehow worsen her apparently fragile mental condition through the slightest vibration of a step.

  _I was_ in a car accident ... wasn't I?_  The more Jenny insisted to herself that she had been, the less certain the idea became.  Had she been dreaming?  _Maybe it was one of those microslips_, she thought uncertainly.  She settled back on the pillow, to find beneath her head a hard lump, hidden under the soft cushion of feathers.  She drew it out._

  The cutlery draw rattled as the kettle boiled in the kitchen.  Jenny cast a glance at her half-opened door and turned back to the intriguing package.

  It was thick and rectangular and roughly wrapped, accompanied by a thoughtful (even if the joke was less than appropriate) Get Well Soon card addressed to her from "The Guys", signed off by each of them with various well wishes.  Red wished her a speedy recovery 'because Sean can't do the laundry.'  The lanky Brodi, infamous for his shocking party gags and bad music tastes, wrote that she should 'milk the op for all it's worth coz Sean's a sucker for the "Ouch I hurt" crap.'  It was advised by Ky that she 'keep away from all light-sources, they hurt if ya hit em.'  Dave formally offered his sympathy, and hoped she would soon be well.  'How - kind,' Jenny muttered tartly to herself, but it could not be denied that she was somewhat touched by their gesture.

  Sean entered with her tea and set it on the bedside cabinet as she regarded the unexpected gift with a lifted brow.  'Oh, yeah,' he said suddenly, as if remembering something he had been supposed to recollect a while ago.  'Since you're into that fantasy stuff, we thought it would be a good idea to get you something you might appreciate while you get better.  It looked like something you'd like anyway,' he added dubiously.  'All knights and dragons and that.  The assistant recommended it.'  

  'It's not going to explode is it?' Jenny asked dryly, one hand poised and prepared to reveal her present.  One could never be too careful when 'The Guys' were involved.

  Her drollery afforded Sean some amusement.  'No, it's not going to explode,' he laughed.  'Well, yeah, we had to force Jax to remove the time bomb he stuck in there, and Brodi wanted to add a few poisonous vipers, but we said no, spiders would fit better.'  He snorted sarcastically.  'It's not going to explode,' he repeated reassuringly.  'Or bite or jump or run around the room.  Go on.  Just open it!'

  Warily Jenny removed the wrapping.  The scent of fresh paper and ink greeted her.  A cardboard box harbouring a set of three books dropped into her lap, entitled:

**  The Lord of the Rings Trilogy**

**Complete Boxed Set with illustrations by Alan Lee.**

**Hardback Editions.**

  'Is it okay?' Sean enquired worriedly, peering over her shoulder.  'We kept the receipt; we can take it back and exchange it for something else if you don't want it.'

  'It's - it's great!' Jenny cried joyfully.  'No, I don't want it exchanged for something else: I love it!  But - how did you know...?'

  'Jen, did you think your nightly ventures under the covers to read the Hobbit by torchlight - _and_ after lights out - was a complete secret?' he responded with smug satisfaction, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, revelling like a small child in the light of her approval.  'It's kind of hard not to notice those things when we shared a room for eleven years.'

  'And it didn't explode!' Jenny exclaimed emphatically.  'Thanks.  A lot.  It's the nicest thing I think you've ever given to me.'

  'What, you didn't like the frog I gave you on your seventh birthday?' he asked in feigned disappointment.  To her utter surprise he leant over and kissed her on the forehead.  Perhaps because it was the most gentlemanly gesture he had ever offered her to date, perhaps because he had not displayed such brotherly affection since he had been three and told to do so by their mother, for the sake of a photograph that had had the two of them blushing when being discussed and laughed over by relatives for years afterwards.  Even so, it seemed a strangely condescending action.  A light hue of rose suffused her pallid complexion.

  'Next time I call you a bitch, don't try to get even like that,' he requested laughingly, and patted her hand genially.  'Anyway, I've got to go to uni.  I'll be gone for a few hours: buses don't run so regularly.  You're supposed to sit quietly and rest like a good little crash-victim for a week, and if there's no improvement by that stage we drag you back to the hospital.'

  He paused at the door, and looked at her over his shoulder.  'Will you be okay on your own?' he said uncertainly.  Jenny waved his worry aside.  'I'll be fine.  Not like there's any stairs to fall down in here,' she assured him.

  'All right.  I'll see you later.  If you're hungry I left some porridge in the fridge.  Just needs warming. Milo's fed and has water, so don't worry about him.  And be careful when you get up.  Don't put too much weight on your left leg, and watch that wrist.  I'll get some lunch on the way back.'

  He shrugged into his coat as he spoke, and then left.  There was an overwhelming sense of loneliness and futility when the front door clicked to a close behind him, and a key turned in the lock for good measure.

  _Watch that wrist.  Jenny smiled sourly at Sean's unintended jest.  Muriel's antique timepiece was still where she had thrown it, although she felt remorse when she glanced at it now.  To remedy her desolation she clambered awkwardly across her bed and snatched it up, feeling a need to have something she cherished close to her, and sat considering its ebony dial and emerald scribbles.  The band was broken where she had pulled at it in the throes of panic._

  _Damn!  Me and that bloody paranoia..._

  The incessant ache of damaged muscles forced her to lie back.  She pummelled the pillow and set it against the headboard, finding at last a comfortable sitting position where the strain on her sinews was lessened.  

  Summer's heat and humidity had relented somewhat, giving way to a cool, serene atmosphere.  Jenny sipped her tea, was surprised to find that Sean had remembered she preferred peppermint in the morning, and fished the first instalment, entitled 'The Fellowship of the Ring', out of the heavily decorated case.  She settled it on her lap and flipped it open; contentedly immersing herself in the fantastical world she had missed since she was nine.  _Still_, she mused, _it was surprisingly considerate of them ... obviously they want something._  _Chapter one: The Long Expected Party.  When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton..._

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

  It was not a place.  It was not a scent or sight or sound; it had no substance, could not be touched.  And yet it was everything.  Here were the roots, the very support of all life, and the very decaying of it.  An eddy of all.

  It rose and fell.  He did not know how he had come to be here, but he lay quiescent, content to rock upon life's ocean.  It sang such a dulcet melody, the loving crooning of a mother to her restive babe, the caress of a summer wind through green leaves, the dance of a freshest over smooth stones.  It plucked at his resolve.  Sink, it bade him.  Just let go.

  Just sink.

  The current pooled around him.  He need only reach out to it and let it take him.  

  _Stop that._

  The gentle rebuke suddenly encroached upon his peace like an unwelcome pest.

  _Go away, he told it brusquely.  _I am dead.  Go away.__

  Something shook him.  Gripped him and tugged at him.  He tried to shirk it, to flee from it, but it flooded into him, seizing him like a hound sinking teeth into a prey's flesh, bluntly refusing to let go.  _Come with me.  Stop being foolish_, it admonished.  _You are not dead.  I will not allow you to be._  Its incessant dragging was disrupting the song.  The soft seductive chords rippled away.  He pined after them.  _Come away from that.  Danger bides there.  Do not listen to that song._

  He hackled with indignance.  How dare it presume to tell him what he could and could not do?  _Leave me alone_, he requested wearily.  Would that it would vanish and let him sink.  How he yearned to just let go.  Why would it refuse to remit?

  _Changer.  The voice was forceful.  It began to pull at him with fierce determination.  _Stop that.  You are bleeding into the Void.__

Changer ... was that his name?  It invoked something in the darkest recess of his memory.  But it was only vague, hazy as though enveloped in a mist at twilight.  Too dim.  Not important.  

  _Changer.  Catalyst.  Come away from there.  It will kill you.  Hearken to me._

The song abruptly changed.  No.  It had not changed; he merely heard it now as it truthfully played.  A rending, shrieking discord, jarring and unpleasant; carrion birds squabbling over putrid meat, a tortured choir howling its misery, the blind screams of blood-lust torn from a hunter's throat.  The temptation still remained, but this new awakening rendered him immune to its miserly caterwauling.  

  _Yes, yes!  Good!  The voice swept around him, laden with praise and savage pride.  It urged him to essay battle against this insidious melody.  He discovered the wound; staunched the bleeding.  The current had already snatched the essence of himself he had unwittingly released, carried parts of his being away.  He reached after them, but a chiding hand seemed to slap him, force him to draw back._

  _Enough time to restore that later.  As you have saved so shall you be saved if you will stay with me._

_  Keeper?_

  It seemed as though it smiled fondly at him then.  The last of his misgivings melted away, fading with the music.  _Changer, catalyst_, it acknowledged softly.  The illusion collapsed in their wake as he held fast to the tether, drawn up from a deadly nightmare and into his own world.

  It irked him to realise how close he had come to sinking.

*

  The soft lapping of listless water against stone; the hushed whisper of a warm wind's conversation with dancing leaves; the soft pallet he was meticulously arranged on.  Strange.  He had no recollection of arriving here.  But it appeared that it had been anticipated.

  The glare of the sunlight stung his eyes.  He retreated into the peach-hued glow behind his eyelids, reluctant to face this living day in his world after the dark period of desensitisation.  A shadow eclipsed the soft light viewed through his lids; roused and irritated, he lifted them again to find a worried visage hovering over him.

  The gentle lines of laughter that usually bordered the storm-grey eyes above had become grim creases, betraying despair and age.  The fine strands of mahogany hair seemed to have lost their lustre, now dull and coarse.  A hand clasped his chin, turned his head in all directions until, satisfied, Cirdan folded himself gracefully to sit cross-legged upon the stone.  He wore a simple robe of blue-dyed wool, tailored to fit his masculine contours, but now it pooled awkwardly around him as he arranged himself.  The Elven shipwright's finely-sculpted face appeared gaunt; the cheeks looked hollow and the lips were thin.  Even his neatly kept beard appeared too bristly and unkempt.  It was not like him at all.

  A weariness haunted Cirdan's eyes, prowling his gaze.  He offered Legolas a small nod of reassurance.  'Fear not, I see nothing amiss,' he informed the prince quietly.

  'Cirdan, you look terrible,' the Elven prince said softly, hastening to sit.  The Shipwright's mouth twitched into a wan smile.  'I have been a little indisposed of late,' he concurred, inclining his head.  'It has been a taxing year.'

  'Such we have pointed out countless times, and yet still the stubborn ass refuses our help.'  The exasperated reprimand came from a tall figure arrayed in a deep-sleeved houppelande of soft grey, who appeared suddenly at the end of the arched passageway and was striding towards them.  The dark-haired younger son of Elrond waved his arms, either fending off the insufferable length of the sleeves (which seemed a constant threat to his feet) or attempting to put into gesture what words could not express.  Elrohir halted at the foot of the pallet and the bitterness that sharpened his cold stare softened somewhat as he looked down on the occupant    'Ah, he awakens at last.  A good afternoon to you Greenleaf.  How grateful we are that you have deigned to grant us the honour of your presence at last,' he greeted Legolas.  There was an edge to his voice that suggested he had not been pleased at the delay.

  'We feared we had lost you,' Cirdan elaborated in a less impatient tone.  'That was not a wise thing you did.'

  Recollection came flooding back.  'I was nigh on letting myself go.  Something pulled me back from the brink, before I sank,' Legolas said suddenly.  He resented that such a weakness could have nearly destroyed him.  Shamefully he hung his head, disappointed in himself.  Perhaps Taure had been right; he was not prepared or ready to face the challenges of the Way Between Worlds.  He recognised his foolishness: he had cheated death by a mere hair's breadth, had always been dancing tauntingly before its black maw during his attempts to fulfil his duties.  How many times before had he presented the opportunity for it to take him?  Every time he had entered the Void it had been lurking after him, biding its time.  And the one time he had faltered it had come rushing for him with jaws opened wide.  Although it had nearly been the end of him it was a valuable lesson to have learned.

  'The song,' Cirdan murmured.  It was not a question; it was a word remembered by one who had beheld the thing itself.  'The song...of all elfbanes one of the most disastrous.'  His gaze had turned inward.  His sinews were lax.

  The song.  Cirdan.  The pieces fit.  'Stop listening to it!' Legolas cried suddenly in dismay.  In the throes of his panic he all but flung himself on to the Shipwright.  'Stop listening!  It is treacherous and false; it lures you to death.  Do not give yourself to it!'  Elrohir gave a wordless utterance of horror, and then stooped to seize the frenetic prince by the shoulders.  Legolas ignored Elrohir's attempts to prise him from Cirdan, looking instead for anything he could waken the vacant Elf with.  His fingers brushed against something cool standing beside his pallet: a silver chalice.  Seizing it he flung its contents into Cirdan's face, then thrust it aside and shook the Shipwright by the collar.  Red wine spilt in sour rivulets down the sunken features.

  Cirdan's eyes kindled with a living fire.  'I...I...,' he stammered, and gaped soundlessly for a moment.  He looked in astonishment at Legolas.  'What happened?' he queried uncertainly.

  'You were soon to sink, dear Elf,' Legolas replied.  'I suggest you build a stronger ship.  Now, where are Taure and Haldir?'  He solemnly sought Elrohir's eyes.  'It is worsening,' he said gravely.  'That is why I was in the Void; the hunter has great cunning: he has discovered a way to force two Time segments together.  I could not recognise the pattern he used, but I can say he was rough in his handling of it.  There were a few threads I managed to unravel, but unfortunately I could not halt the contrived event.  Mayhap it did not work precisely as he desired, but it was enough to cause a great disturbance.  I fear for the woman, as it is her life that we are using to balance the worlds upon.'

  'Haldir is safe and with my brother; but Taure did not come through,' Elrohir said bemusedly, and shook his head.

  Cirdan suddenly appeared lost.  'Taure - that brings something to mind,' he mused hopelessly.  'A message.  Yes.  He sent through a message: he will not traverse back until he has the woman and the inscription.'

  'Then I go back,' Legolas declared, throwing off the light coverlets still wrapped about him and rising to stand unsteadily.

  'No.  You must rest,' Elrohir said firmly.  'You cannot go back through.  You are not strong enough.'

  'Lend me the strength then,' the raven-haired prince pleaded, holding out a placating hand.  'For with your consent or without it I will go back.'

  'And how, pray tell, do you intend to return unscathed and with the quarry?'  Elrohir's voice bordered on disbelief.  Legolas offered a simple answer: 'We will Mask.'

  Cirdan at once evinced his disapproval.  'You cannot Mask!' he exclaimed.  'Only the Keeper may do so, and even if that power were yours, you have not the skill to support it.  Masking requires a predilection, which none of us have.'

  Legolas stood in silence for a moment.  When his emerald gaze ascended to alight upon the incredulous Elrohir, his eyes burned with a fiery determination and a fierce will.

  'I fear you are mistaken,' he disagreed quietly.  'Yea, Masking is best done with a predilection for it; but the Keeper is not the sole owner of that power.'

  He regarded Cirdan emotionlessly, considering.  'A Catalyst may also Mask.'

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

The midday sun focused its sultry gaze through her bedroom window.  Jenny set aside the book she was hungrily devouring as a way to pass time, deciding that the trip to the bathroom could not be delayed any longer, not even for the sake of Bilbo or Gandalf or Frodo.  Milo purred sleepily, stirring from his morning nap briefly, then kneaded the cushion in the wicker chair in the corner and settled down again.

  Abiding by her brother's advice, Jenny tried not to set any weight upon her left leg, and consequentially lost balance and collided with the wall in the hallway.  Devising at last a strategy to use the wall in place of her leg, she found her way without upsetting too many injuries, although the gentle complaining of her muscles was heightening to a pleading cry.

She cast a glance of disgust upon her reflection as she washed her hands, at the generous smattering of brown freckles, the heavy-lidded blue eyes enlarged behind square framed spectacles, the pandemonium that was her hair.  The unattractive, gangling, awkwardly lanky thing that was Jenny Townsend.  She contemptuously flicked water at the mirror, distorting her likeness, and dried her hands.  She and reflective surfaces were doomed to disagree forever, she decided.

  The porridge was in the fridge as Sean had said.  She placed some in the microwave to heat and went hunting for the maple syrup.  It was hardly a suitable noontime repast, but her empty stomach would accept anything to assuage her burning hunger.  She lacked the patience to await Sean's valiant return with the commons.

  But then, where was he?  He had been gone for three hours; he had expected to be back by noon.  Surely he would have called - unless something had occurred that had prevented him from doing so.  Her desire for food vanished as a vision of her brother trapped in the burning wreckage of a bus teased her tired mind.  He had taken his mobile with him, she was certain: but she did not know his number.

  _That note!  She congratulated her addled memory for offering her a coherent recollection.  The water-stained slip of paper was sitting on the phone stand.  She could not think of anyone else whose number would be lying idly around in their apartment.  So as fast as her injuries would allow, she made for the phone.  She dialled the number and waited._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The shrilling of a mobile receiving a call emanated from beneath the seat.  He paused in his so-far fruitless search of the wreckage.  His eyes narrowed in suspicion as he clambered across the buckled body of the vehicle, clawing at the bent driver's door.  Eventually he resorted to simply tearing it from its weakened hinges and throwing it aside.

  He thrust his hand into the cramped darkness beneath the seat.  And found it.  Triumph gleamed in luminous eyes as he drew it forth.  His glee was short-lived.  Unknown number.  

  Useless.

  Snake-Charmer discarded of the cell phone contemptuously, dropping it to the ground and crunching it beneath his boot until it stopped ringing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Jenny stared at the handset as a recorded message suddenly played out, informing her that the person she was calling was no longer available, so would she please check the number and try again.

  She hung up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Taure reclined on the park bench beneath the aquiline bole of the Old London-style lantern.  What he was awaiting none knew.  Haldir cast him an uneasy glance.  

  'You are certain?' he asked, himself very much less than that.

  Taure casually lifted his sunglasses and regarded him with a wry grin.  'Of course,' he said, lowering his shades.  'We go tonight.'

  He transferred his gaze from his companion's drawn face and looked up at the curtained window of the unit, third floor, second from right.  More potent than the song in the Void, _it_ was calling to them, beckoning, enticing.

  _Yes. We go tonight._


	4. The Immortal Binding

  Author's Note:  An update after two months absence – what an amazing feat …  My various bits and pieces have suffered slightly from a move from one computer to another.  That's my excuse; I'm so original.  

   This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but it is the end of the introduction chapters, and the beginning of the actual story.  There will be elaboration on the ending in the beginning of the next chapter when I can really get the wheels turning.  Have been suffering a full creativity block lately, therefore imagination is a little lethargic and reluctant on the uptake.  But thank you for the support that has been shown this far; it's much appreciated.

***

The Enigmatic Timekeeper

_Chapter 3: The Immortal Binding_

_Rating: PG-13_

***__

  _Man and Elf, Dwarf, Halfing and Otherworlder, beast and bough and being, it binds us all.  It encircles us, makes us as one for it is a force that cannot be fathomed: deeper than the blackest abyss of the Sundering Seas, greater than the vastness of all Heaven, more steadfast and enduring than the very bones of the earth.  _

_  But they delved too deep and too greedily, consumed by their passion for knowledge, a quest for the immortal all-knowing and everlasting glory.  They did not see, they did not hear, they did not know.  They pushed forwards, heedless and blind, and did not see their intrusion into something older, wiser, and more devastating than any of them could understand.  It stirred after long ages spent in slumber; with a kindling of bloodlust it rose and came after them.  One saw, and one heard and one knew.  And he cried to the others, 'Ware!'   Only one other hearkened to him, and he woke and knew, warning and pleading with those who remained unaware.  But they did not hear the wakened, for the need was still strong within them and demanded satiation.  The two fled and were forgotten in their flight, and thus were saved from the roused Guardian and its burning hunger._

_  So it was that their ignorant companions found they sought a false hope, and they were cornered, and one by one devoured.  And the Guardian returned to its sleep, and the gate remained closed until the one whose destiny lay within it returned to the way into the Between, born an Otherworlder and the precipitator of the great creation, and set to rights the ill that the folly of the seekers had brought about through secret arts.  And so came into being the Timekeepers, but terrible devastation and unrest brought about the fall of the first, and the untimely abdication of the second._

_  And the one who is third, remains unknown and will remain in anonymity until the day foretold comes to pass and that which is evil and wrong may be at last thrown down, and kept away from all that is good and righteous._

  'Who was the mentioned "one"?' he asked, poring over the heavy tome with interest.  'Does anyone know who the third is?'

  'He has long since passed.  And no-one that I know of.'

  He glanced across at the older man, wondering at the tacit response.  His elder delighted in deluging his students and acolytes with his wealth of knowledge, this sudden inclination to repression denoted ill.  Setting the elaborate quill to rest in the inkwell, he rose and went to join his tutor by the open window.  The light breeze billowed the sable curtains into rippling folds that draped across youth and elder as they gazed upon the tiers of the lower Circles below, and the people who bustled to and fro at their mundane daily tasks.  Work on the fortifications across the Pelannor continued; he beheld the king's new distrust of the world beyond the walls.  He did not understand the motives behind such prudery, feeling entrapped in this enclosed place of stone and mortar.  A reason why reading was a favourite pastime of his.

  'The days grow weary,' the older man sighed, wisps of greying hair curling upon his high brow.  'The wind sings a fell song these cold nights.  I do not think the omens presented are auspicious.  And apparently neither does Elessar with this renewed passion for mortar and stonework.'

  'Oh, come now.  You do not believe in omens, do you?'

  His tutor turned heavy eyes to him; he was taken aback by the resignation that peered from the depths of the elder's mind.  'I did not, but with this sudden profusion of what the lore masters have written as signs I think I have no choice but to be wary,' he answered quietly.  'Eldarion, my prince, you are yet young and unlearned; you have yet to grow and open yourself to manhood.  Even as a man, you will find there are many puzzles to solve and things to learn.  I want to be sure that you have armed yourself with all knowledge that you need and that I can give.'

  'Why so grave?' said Eldarion softly.  He disliked this fey mood, and yet he could not deny those words.

  'I have prepared myself for the battle.  I must now ensure that you too are ready to face the challenges that lie ahead when they confront you.  Your brow will one day bear the weight of the crown of the House of Telcontar.  You must be able to bear that burden in wisdom, and honour, and chivalry, in heart and spirit through given word and vow pledged.'

  'I will, old father,' the prince replied gently.  The wind combed chill fingers through his unruly dark locks, but he relished it not as he would have had he been spared this realisation.  And yet to what end were they all walking, they who did not see, who did not hear, who did not know?  To be devoured or succoured?  The day suddenly seemed less fair, the sun less benevolent, and the standard of Minas Tirith embroidered on his surcoat seemed a hopeless claim to a superficial title that would never withstand the trials ahead.  The hand of the king grasped the hilt of his sword alone, and his son foundered blindly in a suffocating darkness as the world seemed to come undone at the very seams.  It seemed a foolish thing to hope again for union...

_ It binds us all, makes us one ... one heart, one mind, one soul -- but a body hopelessly divided.  Are the carrion birds descending for the feast or are we not beyond healing yet?  Oh, father -- the world will heed not walls, why build and give them the satisfaction of watching them fall?_

_***_

An older and wiser man reflected upon the words of the tome.  All the world was lain before his feet, and he frowned upon it.  Elessar despised this time of anticipation and what it reduced him to: this uncertain, cowering shell of a man with a title and a crown upon his brow and a standard at his back -- so sparse a protection and so weak a claim.  

  Word had been flying like fire through dry bracken of late, and the talk unsettled him.  Memories he had buried many years ago were resurrected and walked the pathways of his mind, attacking when he least expected it, shadowing his every thought.  The embattled king of Gondor found his hands full beyond capability.  Every day they cried for bloodshed and for vengeance.  Every night they whimpered for a saviour and a champion.  Every hour they rattled at him, but he would not offer false hope.  So one by one they forgot their loyalty and turned their backs upon him.  His great work of peace and productivity crumbled into anarchy and obsolescence.

  It struck him to a point where Elessar feared he would yield to madness.  He clutched the balustrade and hung his head, hiding from the dissolution, longing to shirk the yoke of a monarch and be free from these trials that were ever upon his doorstep.

  It had been so long and they had not returned.  A missive had been dispatched to the city from the Grey Havens, but when it arrived he had noticed with a cold thrill that the wax seal had already been broken.  Someone other than him had been privy to the knowledge divulged therein.  Who else knew?  Who else understood?

  _Come home soon, my friend; the times grow dire and I fear I am falling_, he pleaded to the bleeding sky of evening.  _Please, come home soon._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The clement weather had had a sudden change of heart on the other side of the Between.  Where the sun had shone benevolent and the sky had been a clear azure upon his leaving, there were sombre clouds that drizzled a misting veil of rain through the acrid smokes and fumes of the Otherworlder city to greet him, as he stepped out of the dank darkness of the obsolescent trade establishment.  'A fine day indeed,' he muttered in reproof at the bleak mood of the afternoon, tugging his collar high around his neck and resting his hands in his pockets as fine beads of moisture gathered on the black wool of his long coat.  

  Water gurgled in the choked gutter, streaked with the hazy murk of oil.  He had little love for the machinations of these Men, this outland race who prided themselves on the complexity of their designs and forgot the base pleasure of simplistic living.  The earth was poisoned with foul toxins, the sigh of the breeze through diseased foliage was tortured, laden with the filth said designs had afflicted upon the air he breathed.  But then, what could there be but deterioration and death and desolation, in a world that they had written was a creation begotten by the darkness that had haunted the mind of the greatest enemy?  This, the sacrilege of the birth-song and Illuvatar's pure visioning.  It grew worse yet; the Decaying had been set in motion, as had the commencement of the Sundering.  A beginning of the end.

  Legolas' brow creased in a frown as his mind lured him towards dismal thoughts.  The end ... He pushed them away, they would lend him no help.  Allowing himself to sink into despair would be a severe regression they could not afford, not if he was to be a Changer.  Best for him to not to focus on any sole thought, he decided.  Somewhere in the distance a pneumatic jackhammer drummed a shrill tattoo in concurrence with the urgent cry of a siren; talk was a sluggish murmur that lapped against his hearing, the air was thick and heavy, but through it salvation beckoned.  He had but to fall through and let everything go -- he had no place here ... not his problem ... not his burden...

  Like a drowning man broken from a euphoric warmth wrought by the presence of death, Legolas pushed forcefully against the treachery and broke the surface, and breathed the free air, drawing it into all pathways of himself as the poisons drained away.  Something hissed and slithered away into the nothingness he had permeated without intention.  A thrill of terror raced through him.  Forgetting himself, he recklessly pushed his way to the edge of the waiting crowd and ran across the street, the urgency of his errand doubled.  A car came to a screeching halt beside him as a fist pounded the horn and the driver leaned from the window and cursed at him in fury.  But the elf paid little heed in his hurry, offering the irate man a blank glance in dull acknowledgement but halting not.

  It was awake, and it was hunting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The Master was displeased.  And when the Master was displeased so too was his insidious thrall.  Snake-Charmer cast a pallid gaze upon the city from the heights, a brisk wind whipping lank strands of dark hair from the sallow, gaunt features.  He cast about for a moment, but the walls were strong and yielded not to even his battering.  He ventured to expend a little more force, and was rewarded with attention.  Whoever it was that he had found regarded him spitefully, and cocooned his mind with a fortified barricade before Snake-Charmer had the chance to slip past his defenses.  With a rough shove, the seeker was cast aside and found, to his frustration, that he had lost the tenuous thread of contact.  They eluded him, and it angered the Master.  

  _Find it!  Find the woman!_

_  I am trying!  _Snake-Charmer cried in anguish as the fiery ember of the Master's ire stirred to blazing life, and he writhed pathetically in the boundless ferocity, feeling he burned.  With an agonizing slowness the pain was alleviated; he lay upon his side, the trickle of blood warm on his cold face.  He struggled to his feet, thoroughly chastened for his incompetence.  He was weak, unworthy.  The disembodied whisper encouraged his disgust in himself, a steady influx of venom.  And suddenly everything drew itself into alignment.  He had a task.  He must fulfill it.

  _Find it_, the Master prompted him again.  _You have the means but time runs thin as does my patience and faith in you.  Find it.  Now._

  The wretch steadied himself.  He studied the planes of the mortal world, and transcended beneath it.  Something stirred there, in the Under, a mote of some insignificant matter drifting in the Void, through the Between.  It knew him, started in horror as he fixed his attention upon it.  It tried to flee him but he latched upon it and forced it to comply with his will.

  _You!_ His victim sputtered incredulously, quailing.  Snake-Charmer smiled at the hapless one.  _Yes_, he affirmed softly.  _It is I.  And you, friend, will tell me what you know.  Or I kill them all.  Understand, my _lord_?  _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Enveloped in numbness and warm lethargy she dreamt.  Her mind told her so, but still her consciousness remained drowned in sleep, unable to be roused.  The hand was cold and horribly lax within hers as she fondled it, willing life to wander in the pathways of a body gone still and quiet.  She clambered upon the bed and stretched herself beside him, resting her head against a breast that had ceased to rise with breath, and nestled herself within arms that could never embrace her again.  Her heart was shattered and her face was wet with tears.  She ventured to touch his pale brow, to gently tuck a stray strand of pale gold behind an ear, to remember how lines of laughter had warmed his eyes when he had been merry, how fair his face had been when he smiled, how his brow had furrowed when he had been displeased, how his lips had pressed lovingly upon her forehead or rested upon her hair when he had cradled her in his lap.  She did not understand the injustice.  Her father was hers, how could he be so suddenly snatched from her?  

  The grief-stricken child rested his small head upon his father's chest and wept.

  And in the wake of his pain a new scene wrapped itself around her.

  Her sable mount shifted restlessly beneath her as she shielded her eyes with a long hand and gazed to the horizon.  The roseate glow that heralded the sun's ascension stained the edges of the pallid sky.  A torn banner resided in her left hand; the polished hilt of a long sword, keen edge gleaming with the pale fire of the rising day, rested in her right.  Bathed in the scarlet dawn, she looked blearily to the scene lain before her eyes.  Emptiness burgeoned within her; she had not the heart to care anymore, not to weep, not to lament, not to hate or be angry or be hurt.  Once, she recalled, she had known inner pain.  She had known sorrow and grief.  But no longer.

  She coaxed her distressed horse forward, riding through a labyrinth of friends and foes greeted by the still, cold hand of death.  How could she feel nothing?  Coldness welled up within her.  It seemed an evil thing that she should be so obdurate, so unfeeling when she yet lived in the midst of this devastation.  She gazed down upon the still, colourless face of a young man, his hair caressed from his bloody brow by a cool breeze, one hand still held to the wound that had felled him.  Did he have a wife who wept numberless tears in her sorrow as she lay upon the bed, her head resting where once his head would have the better to breathe in the scent of him, to be close to whatever she might salvage him?  A mother who clutched memories of his childhood to her as she wailed her depthless grief, a father who stood in silent indifference before a fading hearth, as he awaited with dread the heavy blow of his loss to find his heart?  Had he children, who could not understand that Papa would not be coming home to them that night, or ever again -- little ones who stood by the door with the faithful hope of the young, watching for him, waiting to be caught up in his embrace and assured that he had not left them?  

  And she looked down into his vacant gaze, and could feel nothing.  The banner fell from her hand as she dismounted her equine, the reins trailed from her limp fingers as she wandered through the grim scene, her boots treading grass adulterated with blood spilt by the blind hatred that had kindled this savagery.  Once she had known pain.

  But not anymore.

  And she fell to her knees and screamed her frustration and anguish to the bloody vault of the heavens.

  Jenny could not withdraw from him; his agony caught her up and held her trapped.  Searing pain exploded in her skull; her limbs trembled as though with an ague but she could do nothing.  

  _NEVER BREAK NEVER FAIL NEVER FALL NEVER BREAK NEVER FAIL NEVER FALL NEVER BREAK ..._ The feverish chant shrieked incessantly in his mind as he screamed for everything that was lost to him -- the relief of tears, the gentle healing of pain, the ability to love and know love, the capacity to trust again.__

'Stop it!  STOP IT!' she cried.

  _STOP IT!  _

» Who are you, changer?  Where are you? «

***

  A hand was unceremoniously clapped over her mouth as Jenny was shaken to terrified wakefulness.  The excruciating ache that played hammer and tongs in her head cast a distracting haze of shimmering colour over her blurred vision.  She panicked beneath the assailant she could perceive only as a shadow against deep grey, and thrust her hand towards the bedside cabinet, desperate for something, anything, preferably sharp and with the ability to cause severe pain.

  _Hush.  Quiet now.  Trust._

The gentle murmur rendered her suddenly lax; the hand closed over her lips slackened its grip.  Renewed fear dashed away that sparse reassurance.  'Sean!' she choked, and then screamed in panic.  'SEAN!'  She tried to throw herself away from her attacker but her legs refused to bear her and betrayed her, buckling as she made an effort to run for the door.  

  _He will not hurt you.  Trust him.  He will not hurt you.  You know me Jenny.  You know us.  Quiet now.  _

Dry sobs erupted in her chest and stole her breath away, leaving her gasping helplessly.  'Make it stop!' she heard herself beg as she wept.  'Make it go away!  I can't take it anymore, just make it go away!'  She closed her eyes to still the tumbling of the world.  

  'Shh, Jenny.  I will not hurt you,' the gentle cadence of a male voice soothed her.

  _Trust him._

  Doubt succumbed to the subtle tendrils of influence that bade her be still.  Jenny stared up into the darkness, feeling a heady rush as though she was falling into it.  But it did not matter.  Gentle hands grasped her, succoured her from the blackness.  The moonlight that knifed through the curtains made clear a sliver of the face beneath the deep hood; eyes discordantly coloured -- one a warm hazel, its counterpart a serene blue -- glimmered in the cold white glow.

  _You are safe.  Trust us.  Go with him now._

'Who are you?  Where are you taking me?' she managed to whisper as she stared, transfixed on the stranger's as yet unclear features.  

  'My name is not important, but I am come to take you home,' he answered softly.  

  _I am the Timekeeper, Jenny__.  Come home.  They are waiting for you._

Another appeared silhouetted in the door.  Jenny glanced at him, feeling unpleasantly light-headed.  Somewhere within her a woman shouted that something was terribly wrong, demanded to know what was happening, screamed at her to run, run to her brother, run to sanctuary and hide.  The voiceless whisper strangled that woman and silenced her shrieking.  And with her departure nothing mattered any more.

  'We must go.  It cannot hold for much longer,' the man in the doorway urged, and the one who held the unconscious young woman nodded.  

  'You administered the draught?' Lea queried as Haldir awaited him in the narrow hall.  

  'I did,' Haldir murmured.  'He sleeps deeply, but not so deep that he will not wake soon.'

  'Then let us away.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	5. Fate is the Wheel of the World

Author's Note: I have now lost count of how many months it has taken me to update, but I think correspondence education is a good enough excuse. Well, that plus a mouse plague of epic proportions; the, er, _heated_ escapades of our "friendly" neighbourhood pyromaniac; me having to reconfigure my entire system due to a little computer virus called "Jane Cleaning Up The Hard-disk" (a.k.a "Me Playing With Technology I Shouldn't" ); my muses going on a "vacation" which now has me wondering whether they'll ever contact earth again; problems of scary proportions with correspondence education; other problems with education in general; and my inspiration taking a back-seat and later falling out of my stalling vehicle. Think of this as my "Sorry-for-being-so-slack" amendment chapter, and thank you for your patience and reviews! Hope you enjoy .

_The Enigmatic Timekeeper_

_Chapter 4: Fate is the Wheel of the World_

_Rating: PG-13_

__

Sean sighed. First, Jenny had given him a thorough yelling at when he had come home late due to capricious traffic and the usual unreliability of public transport. Next, she had collapsed. He had called an ambulance. On regaining consciousness she had cursed and flailed at the paramedic, insisting she was fine, and would they just let her go home? Then he had tried to placate her while she muttered angrily from behind an oxygen mask.

On arrival, the doctor had berated him for allowing her to get so excited when she should have been resting. The medical staff had subsequently decided her concussion was slightly worse than they had at first thought, and for an hour he had been sitting in the waiting room while they 'ran some tests'. A little girl with her arm in a plaster cast had stared at him for the duration of that time, and when he eventually returned her gaze she whimpered and he had received a nasty glare from the rotund woman beside her. And after that he had been waiting for at least another half hour while Jenny signed various documents and was commissioned a pair of crutches.

Now he was leaning on a trolley suffering from severe boredom while Jenny limped up and down the aisles like, in his opinion, a hawk with a broken leg: she insisted on reading every label of everything that was on the list she had formulated.

And then _she_ entered their lane.

Dressed impeccably, as usual, in an elegant black suit that perhaps revealed a little more of her chest than was appropriate, Lily flashed her beautiful set of bleached teeth and sailed towards them on stiletto heels: the shark closing in on the prey. Sean shielded himself with the trolley as Jenny greeted her colleague genially.

'Oh, darling, what have you done to yourself?' Lily exclaimed in her ridiculous squeal, one hand flying to perch melodramatically on her breast. 'I heard a few rumours running around but -- dear me Jenny!'

'Had a little accident,' Jenny said, casually waving the matter aside, along with her tangled hair. 'So, how are things?'

'Oh, not much to say, been doing a little of this, a little of that,' said Lily matter-of-factly. 'Hello Sean.' The fluorescent lights illuminated the transient flash of derision as she turned a forced smile upon him.

'Lily,' he acknowledged, nodding grimly, contemplating escaping to the frozen foods section. Needless to say, he held a great dislike for the foppish 'bitch' who, again in his opinion, had the appearance of a mannequin animated by possessive demons in the deepest pits of hell. Lily tittered trivially and glared at him. 'Nice to see you're still alive,' she said.

'Nice to see the botox hasn't killed all the nerve endings in your face. And do I detect a hint of collagen?' he replied pleasantly, and earned a sound cuff from his sister. 'Sean!' Jenny rebuked, mortified.

'Whatever. I'm gone,' he said flatly and hastily departed the cereal aisle.

'I'm sorry Lily, he's in a bit of a mood today,' Jenny apologized profusely. Lily waved it aside with a perfectly manicured hand. 'Oh, boys will be boys,' she said dismissively.

'Indeed,' said Jenny dryly, staring after her brother, and fervently wishing that she could go with him.

'Oh well, darl; here, I'll take the cart, we'll get this done so much faster,' Lily offered, promptly taking Sean's place behind the trolley. 'Sandy's meeting me for lunch at a quarter past, would you like to tag along? You would be more than welcome; she wasn't sure if you would be well enough to leave the apartment.'

'Oh, thanks but I can't. I've got things to do, and Sean wants help with his, uh, university thingy. Assignment, that's it,' Jenny improvised quickly and baulked at how unbelievable it sounded even to her ears. She had never had much tact for finding sudden inspiration for quick excuses. And she had never had enough patience to stand in Sandy's proximity and not think about wrapping her hands around the woman's throat.

'Okay, that's fine. I'll tell Sandy you said hi, shall I?' said Lily, one eyebrow raised sceptically. 'Ah, and another thing: I ran into Graham today, he sends his condolences, etcetera etcetera. He's got Chelsea sitting in for you, you know. I would have gone in but it's been quite busy in admin. There's a lot of business coming in now. Investors looking for advice, and there's been a fair few international offices phoning in for things.'

_Chelsea, that airhead?! Good grief, now we're all spiralling into the Apocalypse if Graham thinks she knows what to do. _

'Well, I'll be back in soon, so maybe if Graham could just put my stuff aside and I'll catch up when I get back?' Jenny suggested hastily.

Lily laughed. 'I know Chelsea's a bit – well – _blonde_, not meaning to be nasty, but I think she'll manage for a little while Jen. She hasn't blacked us out yet, so we're counting that as a good thing.'

Jenny hunched her shoulders over her crutches and vaguely wondered if it were possible for one woman a little lacking in the intellect department, to cause a cataclysm on such a scale as to wipe out the city.

_A black out isn't the worst of my worries_ – _if she does manage to set off an epic disaster, as highly possible as that is, we'll be lucky if the human race is still in existence at the end of it…_

With Lily's parochial chatter as pleasant as a mosquito's whine by her ear, Jenny cast a furtive glance at her watch; unable to leave it at home, she had kept it in her pocket. It indicated five past noon. A dizzy sensation of déjà vu swept over her; a vague recollection of an obscure memory - like she was forgetting something. But what? And where?

And who?

She was dimly aware of Lily's horrified shriek and Sean's sudden reappearance as he sprinted towards her, his face a tableau of horror, before her head hit the edge of one shelf as she staggered. Sharp pain erupted in her skull, and she could feel something warm trickling steadily down her brow as the floor rushed up to meet her and she spiralled off into darkness.

* * *

Taure glanced upwards at the clock-face on the central council building. Ten past noon.

Late. Again.

The sun slowly progressed past its zenith as he took a seat on a worn bench and tapped his heels impatiently. One by one the enervated hours drifted by. Inquisitive pigeons sauntered awkwardly towards him, cocking their grey heads to regard him with sharp orange stares. A few considered his worn Reeboks and pecked idly at the laces. Seeming to have reached the conclusion that he had no victuals to share, they hopped away to join the flock that had alighted in the centre of the square. In their midst a little boy ran, laughing at they fluttered from him and then drifted back to the cobbled stone. Crouching, the child strewed a handful of grain for them; in a disorderly fashion, the birds clustered to it. They did not seem at all disturbed as the boy gently picked them up, and stroked their soft neck feathers, holding them as he might a precious treasure.

Taure regarded the child curiously. As though comprehending, the boy glanced upwards at him, his stormy grey eyes well masked. Rising slowly, his wide stare still affixed on Taure, he brushed down his clothing and stood motionless for a moment. The beckoning cadence of a woman's voice caused him to turn slightly, but for a while longer he appeared transfixed. Mysteriously drawn, Taure held out a hand to the young Otherworlder.

The boy blinked, and shook his head. With the shadow of a smile, that of a child who harbours a great secret, he bounded away into the arms of his mother. Peering over her shoulder as she bore him away, with one small hand he made a slight gesture of farewell. Taure returned the motion and found himself wondering. It was seldom that he perceived such quality in a being not of his own. The prospect disquieted him as much as it incited an interest. The question of "what if" found many strange forms these days, he reflected idly.

'Tardy as usual, Haldir,' he said in good-natured reproval. The man beside him gave a soft laugh as he corrected the collar of his jacket. 'But for my efforts to be on time, you should commend me,' he retorted smiling. 'Elladan is overly acute and keen of wit, not an easy one to escape from. Valar only knows what trouble you've had me cause.'

'How is Legolas?'

'He is alive, if little else. Fortunately he was found before he was pulled too far.' Haldir's tone darkened as he looked across at his still companion. 'He only wants to please you, Taure; you have not been very tolerant of late and he is becoming concerned. And erratic, which concerns everyone else for he has already caused himself grievous harm.'

Lines of sorrow crossed his brow. 'You know how great a love he has for you; methinks it is in his mind that your work has severed your bond,' he confided softly, averting his gaze. 'He fears he may lose you, as we all fear. You try too hard; what if there comes a time when you cannot escape it?'

Taure gazed listlessly into his cupped hands, wherein shadow pooled as the cobalt cloak of night swept across the bleeding heavens. 'What do you want me to say?' he asked softly. 'What do you expect me to do? It is not my will that he does these things, nor is it to my knowledge when he does. I don't want him hurt or killed. But I cannot enforce constraints upon him; that I fear would only worsen it considering his aptitude for bending rules.'

'You mean your aptitude,' Haldir murmured, the ghost of a smile dawning on his lean face. 'You have to admit Taure, you've never had much patience for rules; refused to resign yourself to such superficial fetters, I believe you said once. You have landed him in as much trouble as he has landed himself and you in on many occasions.'

'You believe I judge him too harshly.'

'Yes. I do. But forget that, time enough for idle discussion later. Are you certain?' The slight waver in his voice belied his façade of confidence. Taure lifted his sunglasses and offered Haldir a wry grin. 'Of course,' he said, and lowered his dark shades. 'We go tonight.'

The tower chimed out the hour: six times it struck and fell silent, the echoes fading into the darkling eve. Startled, the pigeons took flight. The westering sun presented its fiery crown above the black heads of the distant hills. Taure turned his head towards the brick apartments, staring up at a particular curtained window.

_What will come of this?_

* * *

The weather's ire was unremitting. White knives slit the belly of the macabre clouds in transient flashes, and the rumble as of myriad celestial soldiers marching in belligerent cavalcade shook the very crowns of the mountains. Rain volleyed like a hail of silver darts sprung from the bows of unseen archers, and the sibilant vehemence of the wind prowled without the walls, an amorphous hunter.

A slender hand alighted upon a misted quatrefoil window, to gaze out over the machicolations and regard the night's acrimony with a furrowed brow. 'Such misery,' Eldarion muttered, withdrawing his touch as the glass was cold a pane hewn of ice. 'I thought them to be home by now.'

'As thought I,' concurred Elessar ponderously, and shook his dark head, waxing concerned. 'No missive, no messenger; not a word have I received. A presentiment stirs in me; but perhaps I worry overmuch.'

'Llynnewl fears an augury,' the prince said quietly, and crossed to stand before the blazing hearth, resting a hand on the mantle. 'He was unusually taciturn yesterday. He says he needs to ensure that I am readied for my trials. I have never seen him in so fey a mood.'

Elessar gave a quiet laugh, his vague amusement fluttering to the high-vaulted ceiling of the cavernous chamber. 'Llynnewl I fear is finding his good sense depleted as his shoulders bow beneath his years,' he said, and poured an amber liquid from a carafe into a waiting goblet. He lifted it to his son who gazed at him in bemusement. 'To thy good health, Eldarion,' he said, and took a deep draft.

'Father?' the prince questioned gently. 'Are you hale?'

'Hale as I can be,' the king answered earnestly, and set his drink down. Impatiently he folded back the dagged sleeves that dripped in emerald brocade from his arms; Eldarion had noted that it was a gesture often made when he was agitated. Like the crystalline chime of a spoon against the rim of a silver chalice, realisation struck him.

'You do intend to ride out on the morrow,' he said softly, a cold thrill of horror seeming to chill his blood. 'Father – but, you cannot! The way is much too long and perilous, especially in such uncertain times.'

'I have made the journey many times before,' Elessar hedged. 'My strength has not waned: I am no less the man I used to be. Have some faith in your father, Eldarion; he is not yet wasted by his age.'

'I meant it not that way, Father,' the prince assured him, and crossed to grasp Elessar's hands; he noted that they trembled, and his father's storm-hued eyes fluttered erratically as though uncertain of where to look. 'Are you certain you are well?' he asked, concerned.

'I am fine Eldarion, I simply – I am lost.' The king heaved a weary sigh, his strong countenance suddenly seeming ashen as the lightning stabbed at the clouds again, and the thunder rolled. 'I want not for your mother to be affrighted, for she worries enough. And since Legolas rode northwards on some obscure summons, I've sorely missed his counsel; and Faramir being fettered by his own duties… Oh, Eldarion, you are young. Your shoulders should not be encumbered by politics that are a king's concern.'

'I want to help you,' Eldarion insisted bluntly. Elessar, looking into the youthful face of his son, recognised a spirit reminiscent of his own stripling years, and smiled. 'I know that,' he murmured. 'You've been very helpful, Elf, and for that I am grateful; but I must ride tomorrow. It is a matter of necessity, not desire.'

'But you will not have to ride.' Determination burgeoned within the young man and fortified his resolve. He looked at his father with clear eyes, and declared, 'I will go in your stead.'

* * *

****

Propped against the headboard, Jenny held the cold compress to her aching head, wincing as the ponderous movement of her pulse thumped against the sizeable lump she now had. Milo was curled contentedly in his favoured wicker chair, the tip of his tail twitching as he wandered through feline dreams. Jenny glanced at him with envy, wishing she could simply sink into the pleasant numbness of repose. Feeling bitter, she tried to stretch out. Her outflung hand alighted upon the smooth cover of a book discarded on the blankets; hoping she might find reprieve among its pages, she lifted it and found the page she had last been reading.__

The sliding door rasped open as Sean returned inside, having been hanging out the washing on the balcony. Milo was promptly up and out the door, the muted patter of his paws receding in the direction of the kitchen as he mewed piteously. 'Hold on, fuzz ball, watch it!' Sean reprimanded him as the tomcat twined himself affectionately about the young man's legs, most helpfully as he was poised in mid-step, sending him staggering with the empty basket into the bench. 'Right, eat that and keep out of my way,' he advised irascibly, pouring a generous helping of dry cat-food into Milo's empty bowl.

'Jen! Hey, Jen!' Sighing, Jenny set her thumb between the pages she was reading and placed the book in her lap. 'What?' she called.

'Where's the tea-towels?'

'Where they usually are, Sean. In the drawer. The one under the cutlery – or do I need to give you directions to that one as well?'

'They're _not_ in the drawer, Jenny.' Sean did not appear to be in the mood to weather her mordant remarks with good humour.

'Well, look in the cupboard then,' Jenny suggested, exasperated. She decided that for the sake of her peace of mind, she should buy a labeller and clearly mark where everything was located. But then, not everything was located where it should be; the majority of the furniture was still waiting to be removed from the spare-room.

_Ah, Sean's skinny enough to squeeze between it all. Or he can just sleep in the lounge I'm not moving it._

Mellow shafts of late afternoon light spilt through the thin slits that spaced the partly closed venetian blinds, painting the austere white walls a warm peach hue. Jenny limped awkwardly from her bed and twisted the blinds open, relishing the last touch of the dying sunlight. The tall silhouettes of high rise buildings obstructed her view, but she could spy a sliver of the brilliant sunset between them, the extended rays of the sinking sun strung between their dark forms like iridescent gossamer threads, hung with ribbons of fire and laced with soft lavender velvet.

'It's okay, they're all in the washing,' Sean informed her loudly, slamming the cupboard door. The tranquillity of gazing from the window bathed in evening's gentle glow was abruptly shattered, rippling away into the approaching night like the remnants of a stone's passage through still waters. Piqued, Jenny perched on the edge of her bed and fussily adjusted her spectacles. The face of her antique watch winked at her from its place on her beside table, the light scintillating across its smooth surface; eldritch lamps dancing across the glass. She realised she had forgotten to buy a replacement band and cursed herself inwardly, having missed its cool weight pressing into her wrist, as though it contained a part of her, the presence of which she had not realised until her arm was bare, and the feeling that something was missing had begun to trouble her.

Self-consciously she lifted a hand to the back of her neck and cast a surreptitious glance about the room. She had not felt it as acutely for a while, but the sensation that secret eyes were watching her had not completely abated. It even disturbed her sleep, haunting her subconscious mind like a predator biding its time, waiting for the opportune moment to make her its prey. She pulled at the muscles in her shoulders, her uncertainty and confusion having drawn them painfully taut. 'Sean, I'm going to take a shower,' she shouted, setting her crutches beneath her arms and leaving her warm tangle of blankets. Milo sauntered past her as she hopped through the door, having satiated his hunger, and leapt into the soft hollow he had imprinted in the wicker chair's feather cushion. For a moment he turned, and then settled with his tail curled about his paws, staring at the window, ears held aloft in attentiveness.

With a muffled thump, a book fell from its haphazard perch on the edge of the bed. Startled, Milo baulked and made a hasty exit, hissing. A negligent breeze drifted through the window, ruffling the tome's pages:

_Little of all this, of course, reached the ears of ordinary hobbits. But even the deafest and most stay-at-home began to hear queer tales; and those whose business took them to the borders saw strange things…_

* * *

****

The languid flame flickered fitfully in its glass cage, taunted by an errant wind that, cold and sinister as the slithering gait of a serpent, wove its way throughout the town. Attempting to shield the lamp from the weather's assault as the ether stirred with dark presentiment, Merry strode down the lane, muttering at the inconvenience of the disturbance. Heavy clouds were massing in the east, marching on the back of a westward wind, their dark folds redolent of threat as they advanced.

'All right, what's all this fuss concerning?' Merry inquired irascibly as he stepped into the dimness of the Shiriff housings. Twisting the hem of his shirt nervously, Robin Smallburrow accosted the Master of Buckland with a weak greeting. 'W-well, sir, you see,' he stammered, staring abashedly at his hairy feet. 'There's, well, there's arrived a messenger…'

Manifesting from the shadows of one corner, a tall figure swathed in cloak and hood bowed its head and gestured for the timid shirriff to be silent. Robin stuttered to a halt and promptly dropped into a chair, pressing his hands to his cheeks in which a tinge of scarlet had risen.

'Good evening, Master Meriadoc,' the stranger greeted the hobbit. 'As your friend in here was attempting to explain, I have come to your fair land as a messenger.' The inflection of the voice was mellifluous and gentle, doubtlessly a young man's. Merry narrowed his eyes circumspectly as a gloved hand closed ponderously over the deep hood and drew it away. Tousled hair, flaxen in hue, fell unbound and unkempt to broad shoulders. Clear eyes like sun-bleached forget-me-nots gazed down on the hobbit from a lean countenance, betraying no expression or emotion.

'I am Dale Heather, come from the province of Bree,' the messenger expounded, inclining his head. 'And if you would hear it I've important information to impart, if Master Robin here would be so kind as to remove himself.'

'Very well. Robin, if you would, please,' Merry said. The anxious shirriff rose slowly and shuffled from the entrance chamber, mumbling inaudibly. Dale turned his attention back to the Master and motioned for him to be seated. Wary, Merry lowered himself into a chair, uncertain of how much trust it was wise to place in this man. In a moment's appraisal he had noted many strange things, foremost among them Dale's physical aspect: although he claimed to have come from Bree, it was plain in his strong features, warrior's build and fair-coloured hair that he had no blood-ties with that land: the mark of the Rohirrim was irrevocably branded into his appearance.

'I am afraid I have nothing good to tell you,' the young man said heavily, clasping his hands on the table. 'Meriadoc, before I tell you, I want you to give me your honest word that this evening, when the shadows are lengthened, you will wind the horn and send out the warning cry. No, do not ask any questions. Promise me first.'

'How can I trust that your intentions are favourable, Master Heather?' Merry hedged. 'How can I trust that you do indeed come from Bree when you've the look of a man of Rohan?' The ghost of a smile drifted across the young man's austere face. 'You are a shrewd judge, I see,' he remarked quietly. 'You are correct, my origins are in Rohan, but my feet have been planted in Bree for some time now. On my honour I assure you that I have spoken only truth; in good sooth, I've nothing to gain by deception.'

'I will not question your honour,' Merry acceded earnestly. 'And I can see that there is good reason behind your strange request, so yea, I will do as you ask.'

'Good,' Dale said in approval, and sat back in his chair; his brow furrowed seriously as he lapsed into a pensive silence. Then he drew forward again, his arms folded on the scratched wood. Curious at his behaviour, Merry leant towards him. 'I've been a ranger in these regions for some years now,' the man confided lowly. 'I know them well. But recently I've been witness to some disturbing spectacles. You know there's talk of a new darkness to the south and east; it provides an explanation for much of what I have seen. I am aware this has not occurred for over a hundred years, but I pray you listen with open ears, because packs of wolves are descending from the hills in Angmar, and they are nigh on your borders.'

'Are you certain?' Merry hissed.

'I've beheld them with my own eyes, and I've felt their teeth and claws with my own flesh – they are no eldritch incarnations sprung forth from some lingering devilry; they are true animals. From what I have seen of their behaviour, I believe them to be driven by some calling. Evil things are stirring again, Meriadoc. I caution you to be vigilant – there are bloody times ahead of you.'

Merry leapt to his feet in dismay. 'This is terrible!' he cried. Dale thrust a warning hand in his face as he pressed a finger to his lips. 'Tell no one!' he murmured, and the glimmer in his stony eyes flickered out as he drew his hood forth again. His dark cloak swirled about his boots as he stood and regarded the distressed Master.

'Farewell Meriadoc. Keep yourself and your family safe, and I wish you luck,' he said, and left the hobbit standing alone in the chamber. Merry sank back into the chair as the steady rhythm of pounding hooves faded away, dropping his head despondently in his hands. Wolves had returned to the Shire – dire times beckoned.

_Oh, please come back soon!_

* * *

The creature stared at him with lambent eyes, mouth open in a silent hiss. A sinuous shadow framed in the dark doorway, he urgently waved a hand at it. 'Go, bramble-foot,' he bade it. 'I'm no enemy.' The orange tabby sat back on its haunches and regarded him in circumspect appraisal. Seemingly sated, it inclined its head and then returned to its nest amid the feather cushions.

The acrid reek of recently dried paint assaulting his nose, Taure coughed in disgust and held a sleeve to his mouth. 'All is well, hurry up,' he whispered as his silhouetted companion arrived at his side. 'See to the boy, I will attend to our quarry.'

'Ack, what a bitter stench!' Haldir exclaimed in a low hiss, and laughed in quiet amusement. 'Valya's crown, but it makes me light-headed – in good sooth, it's worse than _miruvor_!'

'Then hold your breath,' Taure advised impatiently. Shadows crept across the walls and ceiling, recoiling from the cold touch of the moonlight. As Haldir melded with the darkness, soundless as he searched, Taure crept forward. The connection was so strong he felt he could run it through his fingers, and its source was behind the dark door down the far end of the passageway.

He winced as the door creaked, yielding to his light touch. Lithely he slid into the room and pressed himself against the wall, half-crouching in readiness to flee should he be accosted by anything hostile. Enveloped in fitful slumber, she tossed amid tousled sheets, her hair hanging across her face.

Cautiously, Taure approached her. Anticipation became satisfaction as he reached for her. Suddenly, her mouth opened, a guttural cry issuing forth. 'Stop it!' she cried fervently. Startled, Taure withdrew his hand and fell backwards. His back met the door; with a loud noise, it crashed into the frame. Terrified, he sprang to his feet and placed a hand across the woman's mouth, praying that she would be silent.

Her eyes flew open. For a moment they were suspended, staring at one another, and then she flung her arm towards the table by her bed, her fingers frantically searching. Abruptly, her panic abated; reassured, he removed his hand. Her quiet uncertainty was only ephemeral; unexpectedly she threw herself from the bed, stumbled and then collapsed, screaming a name in the throes of blind desperation.

He felt it, like a gentle stirring in the ether; it drifted around them, whispering words of reassurance. Too weak to resist such influence, the woman collapsed, her hands gripping her voluminous hair as paroxysms shook her. 'Make it stop!' she begged, sobbing. 'Make it go away! I can't take it anymore, just make it go away!'

Her plaintive plea invoked compassion from her assailant; kneeling, Taure carefully drew his arms about her trembling form. 'Shh, Jenny,' he murmured soothingly. I will not hurt you.'

Her lids were shut tight; she drew a shuddering breath, and eased them open, gazing with bemusement in his hidden face. 'Who are you? Where are you taking me?' she whispered.

'Who I am is not important. I am taking you home,' he answered softly. She was still in his grasp. Carefully arranging her, he rose with Jenny secured in his arms. Catching the sidereal light, something glimmered in the dimness. A timepiece glimmered, veins of emerald infusing the impervious darkness of jet.

* * *

Lathed in the orange glow of a street lamp, warily he glanced upwards at the building. _There is no time! Be quick!_ his mind hissed in agitation. The pavement was empty at this hour, all traffic concentrated at the heart of the city, nightlife and neon pumping through its indefatigable veins.

The door swung open and three figures stepped out: the first held the door open to admit the second, in whose arms the third dangled limply. The watcher hastened forward to meet them. 'Hasten, we've no time!' he urged.

Instead of heeding his warning, Taure and Haldir stared at him in astonishment. 'Legolas?' Taure said slowly. 'Why are you here?'

'Elrohir leant me enough strength to traverse here and back one more time,' the prince explained, pulling his collar higher about his neck. 'But no more questions, we must go now. The Guardian is awake, and the hunter is aware of our venture this night.'

'The Guardian?' Haldir cried in horror, but Legolas offered him no more explanation, brusquely shoving him in the back to make him move.

'If the hunter knows, and the Guardian has roused – then it is not safe to be out here,' Taure said worriedly, glancing down at his unconscious burden. Jenny made no sound or movement, completely oblivious.

'So this is the one,' Legolas mused thoughtfully, and swiftly became severe again. 'Haldir, place a hand on Taure's shoulder,' he instructed, searching anxiously for something concealed within a pocket of his long black coat.

'But – why?' Haldir questioned, bemused.

'Trust me. Just do as I say.' Hesitantly, Haldir slid a hand onto his companion's shoulder. Imbued with an ethereal glow, a golden band like interwoven sunlight rested in the prince's palm as he drew out his hand. After a moment's indecision, with an uncertain movement he slipped it upon his right forefinger, closing the fingers of his left hand firmly on Taure's other shoulder.

The world dissolved into a nebulous haze as together they transcended below material reality, fading into a sequestered flow. Walking unseen, they hastened down the vacant path, a sinuous shadow skulking unheeded in their wake…

_Now is your chance! Redeem yourself! Get them NOW!_

* * *

Second note: I am hoping to be much less tardy with updates in the future – now that I have acquired the inspiration to turn the wheel, perhaps I can finally keep it moving! Thank you to all kind reviewers, and much gratitude to Melintalle for her plea, which is what prompted me to sit down for four hours and find my way out of the rut I'd jammed the story in. I will also be changing the title of the story, most likely to "The Way Between"; the current title seems a little predictable.__


	6. Release

Author's Note: Wayhay! Another chappie within a matter of weeks! I feel so accomplished. Yes, rather – lengthy. Had much to include. Oh well, enjoy!

* * *

_The Enigmatic Timekeeper_

_Chapter 5: Release_

_Rating: PG-13_

__

_She drifted through darkness, wading through a gelatinous pool of shadow that slithered chill tendrils across her, drawing her down, seeking to immerse her in the impervious black depths. Her efforts to escape were futile; steadily, stealthily, she was pulled downwards, sinking into the nightmarish mire._

_A layer of pitch closed over her head. It was so hard not to succumb – as her resolve to struggle eroded, something with the heat of life pulsing through it grasped hold of her, plunging through her prison of liquid jet. With an abrupt surge she surfaced, pushing through the onerous gloom, clawing in dismay for that warm touch as it relinquished her._

_An ethereal glow glanced from ivory spears aligned in a gaping maw, the red-eyes beyond glaring at her, boring into her mind. The predator closed its jaws around her – for a moment she hung, a vice of horror crushing every last breath from her body, and then she was falling, plummeting helplessly into the abyss…_

--Yes, come to me _sainardhoni_. Come to me…--

* * *

As though she had been suddenly hurtled in her physical form, an inexplicable sense of momentum thrust Jenny upright, her eyes flickering open in terror as her hair fell in a tousled shroud across her face. A dream, just a dream, she assured herself from behind the tangled veil of dyed filaments, gasping as she recalled the horror of that lurid gaze, like ghastly orbs of blood. They had been affixed on her so intently, harbouring such deep malice – she could not bear to think of it.

'Just a dream,' she reiterated firmly, one hand at her breast as her heart thundered frenetically. 'Come on, Jen, up you get. Some peppermint tea would be nice right about now.' She groped for her spectacles. And met only empty space where her bedside table should have resided. Startled, she flicked her hair from her eyes. She did not need her glasses to know that she had not woken up where she had fallen asleep – light like liquid amber poured through carven apertures that opened out onto a broad balcony. It danced across the translucent folds of gauzy curtains, through which a light breeze trailed delicate fingers, inciting a shimmering across white walls.

Diaphanous ribbons of mist seeped from the verdant hollows the room overlooked; a light coverlet of saffron lay over the quiet forest as the sun peered through a swathe of silver cloud, newly risen. The air was redolent with sweet fragrances – the bright scent of honeysuckle, the mellow smell of lavender, the warm aroma of rose – a veritable bouquet of perfume laced every breath she drew.

It would have been serene had not fear and confusion seized her: uncertain, she stumbled from the bed, trailing the covers behind her. A slight pain lanced through her legs – uttering a short cry, Jenny dropped to her knees. Awkwardly she sat down, massaging her sore sinews; draped in a haze of lassitude, her mind attempted to comprehend the situation. She did not know where she was; she did not know how she had come to be there.

Well, that's a great start, she thought caustically, alone, afraid, and uneasy. So, do I get to wake up now? Is there a camera in here somewhere? She glanced surreptitiously around, half-expecting to see the transparent eye of a lens staring at her from some high corner. The room was empty – at least of any visible spy equipment.

_Oh boy, if the Guys are behind this – I'm going to kill them. No mercy. No exceptions, not even for being intellectually impaired. Not even for Dave. Not even if they had good intentions – highly unlikely…_

She opened her mouth to shout but paralysis seemed to have gripped her vocal cords – all she managed was a soft sigh. Common sense vied with her desperate hope for her brother and his friends to be involved somewhere, for them to burst into peals of dim-witted laughter and assure her that it was just some stupid prank. A derisive voice in the back of her head cruelly informed her it was not, and she knew it was not. She shut it out, clapping her hands over her ears, refusing to believe.

'Ah, you are awake. Good.' The door had eased open without her realising; the tall figure standing in it started violently as she shrieked loudly, flinging herself away. The smooth surface of a wall halted her hasty retreat; she pressed herself against it, trembling. But – she recognised that mellifluous cadence, that gentle articulation, every nuance like a dulcet melody. A nebulous memory surfaced. 'You!' she burst out. 'You're the one that attacked me! Where am I? What do you want?'

'Hush, Jenny, I am not here to hurt you,' he reassured her, extending his hands in a placating gesture as he cast a wary glance over one shoulder and then shut the door. 'I've come to see how you are.'

'How do you think I am?' Jenny shouted angrily. 'You attack me in the middle of the night, and then drag me off to this – this place. What do you expect me to do, grovel at your feet in humble gratitude?'

The stranger had the audacity to laugh. 'Nay, Jenny,' he said gently. 'Never. You need not fear me; I know this may seem a little brusque, and it will take time to adjust, but I need for you to trust me.' He knelt before her; beholding him, she felt as though the tip of a needle suddenly perforated her heart. Rich light and soft shadow played across the honed planes of his face; his features were well defined, his gaze open and honest, framed by an autumnal cataract – an unbound fall of auburn hair interlaced with gold that poured across smooth shoulders. The hand he extended invitingly towards her was smooth and slender; tentative, she held out one of her own, placing it upon his palm. She was disturbingly reminded of the glimmering teeth as he slowly closed his fingers, his mismatched eyes, one blue, one hazel, glimmering softly as he smiled.

'Good,' he murmured, soothing.

'I think,' she said, wavering, 'that it's only fair you give me an explanation. Who are you?' Before he could answer, the doors at the back of her mind folded inwards; in a startling deluge, memory assaulted her.

'No, wait, I know you. I've seen your face – I know your name… the – the crash, and the headlines – I saw you, that night. We were staring at each other… But then I – I crashed, but it wasn't you… I saw you again, you were in the paper – your name is Lea, that's what it said, I know that; but that can't be right! How can that be –?'

'Hush, Jenny, calm down,' he interjected firmly, seizing her wrists; her confused prating tapered into hopelessness. She shook vehemently, unable to comprehend – nothing made sense; everything eddied indistinctly, her mind was in turmoil.

'What's going on?' she cried, wrenching herself from him. 'No, don't touch me, please – this doesn't make any sense.'

'Jenny, be quiet. You must try to be still. Listen to me: it is true, can you understand that? Everything you have seen, everything you have heard – none of it was a trick or a lie. I am Lea, and you did see me. Listen, Jenny, you need to know.'

'No, no, I don't want to hear this,' she whispered, folding her hands over her head. 'It can't be true, it can't be. It doesn't make sense.'

'Very little in life exists to make sense,' Lea said sagely; his fingers closed over her hands, surreptitiously prising them from their defensive position on her scalp. 'But it not whether or not we can understand it, it is that we are aware of it that makes it true. Come; let me help you.'

Feeling as though she drifted through a surreal atmosphere, Jenny numbly allowed him to assist her. 'But – why?' she asked at length.

'Because we are aware of it,' he answered gently. 'I understand how great an upset this must be to you, but you must not question anything I tell you. Curiosity or inquisitiveness, here, is not often regarded with patience.

'I will leave you to your peace for now; I do not feel it is wise to exacerbate your current state, given the circumstances. But here, drink this, it will help you rest.' He offered her a delicate cup of sweet-smelling amber liquid, lifting it from an ornate stand she had not noticed.

'How do I know you haven't put anything bad in there?' Jenny asked guardedly, accepting it warily.

A rictus of amusement answered her suspicion. 'If you mean poison, I assure you I have steeped nothing in the tea save lavender and valerian,' Lea answered genially. He leaned suddenly forward, so his comely countenance saturated her vision as she sat on the bed, holding the tea in tremulous fingers. A pleasant scent as of cinnamon seemed to emanate from his honeyed skin; Jenny hastily glanced aside, floundering helplessly in the puissance of his proximity, drowning in his ethereal beauty. She despised the simpering of sycophants, especially that of Lily. She had always viewed it as demeaning, but now she feared she would become one of them – those women whose eyelashes fluttered, who pranced about with their "cutesy" mannerisms to gain attention. The thought was disturbing, yet how could she look at him and not think about it?

'I am not ready to resign myself to death,' he murmured enigmatically, and smiled; something in his manner irked and yet drew her to him, as though a tenuous thread of gossamer bridged them, so fragile a connection, almost unable to be sensed, yet its existence could not be denied. She had forgotten the words that had preceded his mystical remark, but could not care.

Distracted, Jenny took a deep draft of the tepid concoction. Within moments an iridescent haze had descended, masking Lea as he prised the cup from her lax hands and left, pausing briefly at the door and then closing it in his wake.

The pillows were so soft and deep, yielding to her heavy head as she lay down, bathed in warm lethargy. The soporific effect of the herbs soon precipitated her into a dreamless netherworld, safe from savage jaws and scarlet eyes.

* * *

Saffron light flickered across dark eyes, staring at him, depthless pools of death. Tremulously, Merry brandished the torch at the hulking beast. 'Avaunt!' the Master cried. His hand curled at his side, fingers closed over a nothingness that the cold steel of a sword-hilt should have occupied; the blade lay on his desk, still encased in a black leather scabbard. It would be of little use to him now. 

Black lips pulled back in a savage snarl, baring dagger-like dentition. Hackles raised, the great wolf paced warily; it did not like the stick of fire the small creature threatened it with, but it was not soon to admit defeat. The prey was cornered, and the flames were fading. Soon it would be safe to lunge forward and claim the spoils.

Merry had the wits to realise this as well, but neither was he prepared to stand down.

'If I had my sword with me, I'd have run you clean through, muzzle to flanks to the tip of your tail, you furred demon,' he growled viciously, stabbing at the wolf with the dying brand. Despair crept like hoarfrost through his limbs as fate reared its bloody head over the horizon – trapped between teeth and stone, with nothing more than a wearying torch to defend himself with, his chances of survival seemed winnowed by every hot blast of vile breath that issued from the wolf's slavering jaws.

'Sorry, cur, there will be no halfling to fill your belly this night,' a voice suddenly cried; from the concealment of the caliginous night, a looming shadow was sequestered – the paltry glow of the flames lanced across an arc of cold steel that cut through the darkness, the air whistling across its length. Mounted on a black gelding, the equestrian swiftly sheathed the sword, extending a gloved hand towards the shaken hobbit as the wolf collapsed on its side, black blood seeping in thick rivulets through its coarse fur, the flesh neatly cloven.

'We meet again, Meriadoc,' the rider laughed as the Master gingerly took the proffered hand and was hoisted into the saddle.

'Dale Heather?' he inquired, astonished. The young man smiled, the pale blue of his eyes glinting. 'I thought I might lend myself to your cause,' he said, and coaxed the gelding to a canter. 'I was patrolling nearby and thought dabbling my blade in some wolf slaying would be a perfect sport for an otherwise dull night. There are but a few errant grey-pelts left; for a little folk, your people are certainly hardy warriors. But 'tis fortunate I chanced by, would you not say?'

'You've indeed a knack for judging time. Well, dabble your blade all you wish, and welcome to it,' Merry said as they progressed to a gallop, flying towards the heart of the town. Fate's ominous crown descended as the tables turned with ardour, and the scattered remnants of the fanged menace took to the woods, only a few fleeing beneath the verdant eaves as with a clamour, a tide of halflings surged in their wake, cutting down those within reach of their weapons.

'You've an army there to match the fiercest gathering of Men,' Dale commented, aiding Merry to dismount. The hobbit meticulously brushed down his clothing and gave the gelding a joyful pat to the flank. 'Well then, I suppose that's the end of it,' he said. 'Thank you kindly for your help, Master Heather; I feared my days were shortly to end on those teeth. Now, if you will excuse me, I believe there is a flagon of ale, a good meal, a pipe and a chair before the hearth awaiting me. Farewell.'

'Farewell, and may you enjoy your well-earned comforts, little Master,' Dale laughed, and with a cry to his horse vanished into the night.

* * *

It was a mournful ululation as of a distant howl that awoke her to greet the pallor of dusk. A gentle lilac suffused with darkling azure and pale ochre crowned the mountains, and the forest was a soft blanket of shadow carpeting their flanks and sweeping down into the valley. Disorientated, she recalled the morning's bemused conversation with the one who named himself Lea, the same Lea whom she had momentarily beheld before that evening's accident, the same Lea who had supposedly been in a critical condition, lying unconscious in the intensive care unit, and yet who appeared without a scar as a testament to his ordeal. 

The same Lea who leant on the balustrade, gazing pensively down upon the gardens, pleasant zephyrs playing amidst the silken strands of his long hair; he was, she noticed, arrayed in soft grey raiment that dripped in liquid folds from the lean contours of his lissom form.

'There is food and drink on the stand, if you care to partake of them. I trust you slept well,' he said quietly. His smile was convivial as she timorously reached for a small loaf of golden bread, herbs speckling its soft white flesh. The water was sweet, as though imbued with a tincture of nectar. Her appetite and thirst piqued by this offering, she set upon it with vigour.

The intentness of Lea's stare disconcerted her. 'What?' she said, frowning, and brushed self-consciously at her face for any lingering crumbs.

'Nothing,' he answered; his voice was hazy, strangely distant. He had the courtesy to avert his eyes, but a shadow of trouble had descended on his countenance. 'Do you think you are prepared to hear what I have to say?' he queried at length.

'I don't think I'd ever be prepared,' she answered, setting the emptied dishes aside. 'This still feels too – too dreamlike, but I – I can feel things in the dream. I see you, I know you're not a ghost – but, still, it's strange.'

'As I said before, it is the fact of something's existence that makes it real, not our level of belief,' Lea reiterated. Pervaded with the faint glow of the insipid sky, a disk of polished crystal resided in his palm, produced from within his sleeve by some sleight-of-hand, she suspected. Leaning closer to the object, she realised it was her watch.

'I believe this is yours,' he murmured, and pressed its cool weight into her palm. Jenny slowly closed her fingers over it, feeling the warmth of her hand suffuse its cold metal. As she gazed at him expectedly, Lea seemed to struggle with appropriate words to explain. 'I – Jenny, this is going to be difficult; however— '

He was interrupted by an unexpected intrusion; a lithesome figure slipped through the door, one slender hand resting against the handle as the newcomer peered furtively from side to side, and then closed it. 'Say nothing,' he warned with a whimsical inflection. 'As far as you are concerned, I am not here – oh, you've awakened. Good evening.'

He strode to the bedside and took up her hand, pressing his lips upon the back of it; the sable veil of his hair brushed in silken strands across her wrists – how hard it was to resist the temptation to run her fingers through those fine filaments. When he relinquished her hand, she abruptly jerked it back, feeling heat rise in her cheeks as she forced such thoughts from the forefront of her mind.

Like an unseen aura, there was a certain quality that mantled him, one that had an eldritch feel to it. Eyes of a depthless green regarded her from within an ovate face, so perfectly sculpted it seemed preternatural; like to Lea's, his features were honed, but their definition was less severe. His hair, the forelocks pulled into a loose braid at the back of his head, trickled like liquid shadow across his shoulders to brush his slender waist. Leggings of a dusky green limned the lean contours of his legs, vanishing into boots that partially encased his calves, the tops turned down to reveal a velveteen lining. It was difficult for Jenny to comprehend that this epitome of perfection, who appeared like a numinous manifestation to her eyes, could possibly be real – he seemed an effigy carved from finest marble, animated by mystical forces or the working of secret mechanisms crafted by a master engineer.

'You've not made an escape from the Twins again, have you?' Lea inquired resignedly. The vision of male allure lifted his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. 'If they miss me, they may come seeking, and I fear hither shall they seek if you speak so loudly,' he replied, unperturbed. 'But I suspect there are more pressing matters at hand than my disappearance.'

'Jenny, may I present to you, despite the fact he has already taken the liberty to present himself, Legolas Greenleaf, the more flippant and reckless member of our cavalcade,' Lea introduced with a flourish.

'Legolas Greenleaf? That's not a very funny joke,' Jenny said dryly. 'Aren't you guys a little old to be playing at fantasy?'

'Excuse me?' Sable-Hair interjected, bemused. Lea held up a hand to silence him. 'Jenny, I have already mentioned the matter to you,' he said patiently. 'Rest assured that this is no fantasy.'

'I'm not listening to this,' Jenny declared obstinately. 'This is stupid. If you're not going to do anything other than sit there and babble on about belief and existence, then let me go home. I won't press charges if you just let me go; I won't say anything, I'll forget it ever happened.'

'Look at the timepiece, Jenny. Look at it. See those decorations? That is actually an ancient mode of writing, long antiquated,' Lea said firmly. 'Your great-aunt gifted it to you on her death-bed, but did she ever tell you how she came to acquire it?'

'I want to go home,' Jenny repeated, an icy influx of fear creeping through her veins.

'Jenny, please, you must try to understand, you must try to see,' Lea coaxed, a tint of despair in his now hollow voice.

'No, just – no, this isn't right. Please, just go away,' she murmured, disquieted. 'This can't be real. I'm dreaming, I must be, there's no other explanation… But I'm not dreaming, am I?' she whispered dismally, gazing at them in misery.

'If you are dreaming, then I have been asleep for the entire duration of my life,' Lea said quietly, his lips twitching into a weak smile. Jenny's face remained still, her eyes vacant as myriad thoughts coalesced into a writhing mass of confusion, dread, disbelief, and fear in her aching head.

Sable-Hair gave a slight start as her outstretched fingers brushed unabashedly against his side, running across the mossy velvet of his tunic. 'Oh God, I can touch you,' Jenny uttered in cold horror. 'Does that mean—'

'I am as you see me,' he replied gently; white heat lanced through every sinew in her arm as his slender fingers closed around her hand, a sensation both terrible and entrancing. 'Do you dislike my name? Fain would I change it to please you, save that I can find no other that quite matches my eyes so well, think thee so?'

His light levity was misplaced. Jenny fell back against the pillows, the bitter fingers of shock strangling her voice, a string of recollected words taunting her:

There was also a strange Elf clad in green and brown, Legolas, a messenger from his father, Thranduil, the King of the Elves in Northern Mirkwood…

'I-I know your name,' she stammered. 'It was in a book – but how can that be true? It's a story, just a story, just ink and words pulled from someone's imagination and put together on paper.'

'Many stories have historical foundations, as some are conjured from experience, and others based on truth.' Lea placed one hand in an empathetic gesture on her arm. 'Sometimes where knowledge is incomplete, we must simply trust in fate. You are familiar with but one part of a tale that spans many thousands of years, the threads of which we must now take up once more.

'Come, if you feel hale enough, let us walk awhile. It is a pleasant evening, and perhaps it will help to clear your mind.'

* * *

Despite the fact that comprehension yet glided far out of reach, Jenny retained enough prudence to refuse to go anywhere in her pinstriped pyjama bottoms and old Winnie-the-Pooh nightshirt. 

Lea offered her something that appeared to be a gelatinous heap of cobalt-coloured stuff that dripped in flaccid folds over his arms. 'Here, array yourself in this,' he invited. Jenny stared at the tremulous mass dubiously; without her glasses, she could not quite discern precisely what it was.

'It is a cotehardie,' Lea expounded.

'A what?'

'A cotehardie, an outer tunic. The air is chill this night; you would do best to wear it. Wait, there is a gown to go beneath it.' To the dark cotehardie he encumbered her arms with he added a second folded garment; the fabric was soft, a pale blue. White laces hung loose at the back, and delicate silver embroidery worked like spider-silk into trailing patterns was stitched around the wide collar.

'Oh, and I fetched these from your home as well.' Her fingers closed about cold steel; hastily, she placed her spectacles on and blinked as everything aligned into clear shapes, no longer distorted. Speculatively, she ran the articles of clothing through her fingers, admiring the fluidity of the material, the elaborate stitch work, so precise and tidy, not a dangling thread to be seen. 'Well, turn around,' she ordered. 'If I'm supposed to put these on I'm not having you two watching.'

Courteously, they obliged. 'Well, I must say the walls are most interesting at dusk, would not you agree?' Legolas mused inanely. 'So – bland, so – fascinatingly dull, such – nondescript charm. Sooth, my mind has already been rendered numb.'

'I concur, but I prefer the door,' Lea replied airily. 'There is such a tedious quality to the wood it cannot help but cause one's eye to twitch if one stares at it for too long.'

Through their satirical exchange, Jenny struggled to find which limb went through which opening in which garment. _This is like trying to put on a Rubix Cube_, she thought wryly, unfastening the laces of the gown and slipping it over her legs.

'Do you need help?' Lea inquired earnestly as she performed an awkward dance in an effort to draw it up over her hips, surprised to find she no longer ached.

'No, no, I'm fine,' she declined, at last claiming victory. 'But – could you do these damn laces up for me?'

She pulled her hair across one shoulder as, laughing, Lea rethreaded the ribbons and pulled them taut, fastening them neatly at the nape of her neck whilst chiding her for pulling them apart in such a rough and hasty manner. When she finally emerged from the voluminous labyrinth of the cotehardie, Legolas ceased his study of the wall. 'Well, my lady, shall we depart?' he inquired, offering her his arm. Charily she accepted it, unable to shirk the onerous feeling that she drifted somewhere far beyond reality, trapped in the nebulous confines of a world wrought of dreams.

* * *

The click of the catch as Lea shut the door in their wake was an oddly jarring sound in the serenity, resonating through the recesses of her mind like the crystalline plink of a stone disturbing quiescent water, the faint sound echoing through dark tors. Splinters of light scattered across panelled walls with white architraves, fractured by deciduous silhouettes, as the last vestiges of sunlight sluiced through shifting gaps in the leaves and a light breeze danced through the heavy boughs. 

The arched windows faced the west, so for the glare of the descending sun Jenny found it impossible to glimpse anything of what lay beyond the airy corridor. Leaves formed a carpet of russet and gold on the parquetry, rustling beneath her bare feet while the strides of her companions barely roused a whisper. Every now and then an arras would billow gently, light scintillating across its vivid colours, each thread imbued with living history.

A flight of marble stairs led down into an open chamber, wide apertures admitting the outside. Through one Jenny discerned faced east they walked, descending a series of steps carefully fashioned from a natural wall of stone, and came to an arbour overshadowed by the tapering girth of an ancient oak. Beyond was the arc of a tiled verandah; to this Jenny was led with some difficulty, having to pause every now and then to bury her nose in the soft petals of some sweet-scented flower that entranced her, or to admire the architecture and ask questions that more often then not remained without an answer.

The view from the verandah took Jenny's breath away the moment she glanced over the balustrade. A wide vista of the valley opened out before her; to their right, the opalescent curtain of a waterfall cascaded; glinting rainbows caught in a web of mist. The silver thread of a river wound its sinuous way through willow withies gilt with autumn's mantle, and circlets of wispy cloud coroneted the summits of the forest-flanked mountains. The arch of a bridge straddled the banks of the stream that flowed from beneath the cataract, a tributary of the distant river; from the bridge a stone courtyard extended, its edges hedged by all manner of lush plants, and from this a road ran through an open gate, forging a precarious route perilously close to the ragged borders of cliffs, which dropped suddenly away into the dale, sheer facets of weathered rock plunging to the verdant floor far below.

The very building itself was a wondrous architectural feat, no detail neglected, almost an extension of the natural marvels the dale harboured. No visible door or window disallowed entry of the world. It consisted of various segments, some climbing to two storeys, others merely one, some bridged by corridors, others sequestered. Everything, even the purity of the air Jenny breathed, seemed too marvellous to be true.

'Welcome to Imladris, or Rivendell, the Last Homely House, once of Elrond Peredhil,' Legolas said quietly, gesturing with a generous sweep of one hand to the breathtaking panorama. 'Now his sons, the lords Elladan and Elrohir, preside over its halls.'

'Imladris – I always thought the name sounded beautiful,' Jenny murmured. 'I never thought I'd be able to put a precise image to the words.' She smiled weakly.

'Yea, the last enclave in which true beauty still resides,' Lea said pensively, a dark stain of sorrow in his voice. 'But there will be time enough to admire it later. You have knowledge of Tolkien's work.'

It was not a question, but Jenny nodded in answer.

'And you see now the true magnitude of what he created.'

'Created? What do you mean?'

'Sometimes, Jenny, one simple letter can be the beginning of something great,' Legolas said sagaciously. The turn of his mood was sudden – the jocular gleam of his eyes was now a glint of solemnity, his face untouched by the humour it had held before. The gravity of the situation sobered Jenny; like something caught by peripheral vision, yet gone when one tried to look at it clearly, a shadow seemed to drift, an augury that vanished when she focused on it. Somnolent content became cold anxiety. Presentiments scuttled along the length of her back – what was going to happen?

'This will be as hard to understand as it will be to explain,' the raven-haired prince murmured with a soft laugh, shaking his dark head ponderously. 'But we have only words, and we can only use them as we may. Shall I begin?'

Lea inclined his head in silent acquiescence, his arms folded grimly at his chest. Legolas deliberated for a moment, and then glanced at the Otherworlder woman. 'This – everything that surrounds us – was built by the hands of one man,' he said quietly. 'Your people might call it "magic". He sang with the Firstborn and rose with the Men; he made all things we see, touch, sense, and hear. One letter can be the beginning of something great,' he echoed his earlier words. 'Sometimes, that something great is given the chance to manifest into a more substantial form. This is what Tolkien did.

'Time exists as a nothing that surrounds everything. All life energies, both plant and being, have a connection to it, a thread that binds them to their place in what we call the Way Between, or the Void. When that connection is sundered, the life energy drifts free. That is death.'

'Things past are only what lie behind our own connections,' Lea said. 'Our threads anchor us to one place in one flow; however, it is possible to pull an energy into a different flow without segregating them from their own time. This is what we have learnt to do, in order to traverse between your world and ours. But it only takes the displacement of one energy to change the course of Time; our world is younger, but we exist in a flow that, while parallel to that of your world, moves much faster. When an energy is shifted, the flow must alter to compensate. You stand here now, Jenny, but your connection remains with your world. Because of this, Time will repeat itself.'

'So – at the moment, I don't exist?' Jenny said, struggling to grasp the enormity of the concept he introduced her to.

'As an energy, yes. As an incarnation of that energy, no. Even before we are born, our energies exist, secured in a flow but not yet fixed to a position. All lives, past, present, and future, will forever be contained within the Void. Only the mortal form will perish.'

Lea's shoulders heaved in a silent sigh. 'It's a capricious thing,' he murmured. 'Something that can truly only ever be understood without words.'

'But – if all of this is for real, what about Elves?' Jenny asked, confused. 'Elves are meant to live forever, but how can they if the mortal form perishes? You're an Elf, aren't you? The – the book said you were.' Jenny turned to Legolas, feeling distinctly ill as her mind worked frantically.

A sad smile curved Legolas' mouth. 'Once, we were no less immune to death than your people,' he sighed. 'Once, we aged and we died. The Noldorin were renowned for their ingenuity. Tolkien made them so, and such they were, forever occupied with puzzles and mysteries that other races had no concern over. It was they who discovered the secret, that which would allow a thread to remain intact forever, and to keep its shape. And so, we are trapped in the circles of Arda, both curse and blessing.

'At first, the immortality was irrevocable unless the body was slain, the connection forcibly severed, or an energy languished from deep sorrow. The Noldorin, for all their cunning and wit, did not understand how Time moved, knew it only as a passing thing which explained the turning of days and nights. They did not know it existed as something far greater than they could ever understand. It took an accident to make the discovery, one that gave us the freedom to choose to separate ourselves when we grew weary of physical existence. But it was something that was never meant to come to our knowledge. By the time Tolkien attempted to intervene, nothing could be done to revoke what the curiosity of our forefathers had wrought. Again, it became curse and blessing. We have no choice but to live as they have made us.'

Legolas drifted into reticence, a dark gravity seeping into his gentle aura. Lea took up the tale.

'Tolkien knew that what we had done would have terrible consequences. And the only way to maintain the balance was to allow the essence of the Void into his being, become part of it as it became part of him. But that knowledge passed into the wrong hands, and gave birth to black machinations that almost destroyed all.'

'Sauron?' Jenny inquired. The appellation tasted bitter on her tongue. Legolas nodded slowly as Lea continued. 'Yea. Sauron. The Necromancer of Dol Guldor. His curiosity was piqued when he learnt of the Elves' workings. If he could find a way to harness time, all of our land, and mayhap all lands beyond would have become his vile demesnes.

'When one becomes of Time, Time becomes of them. When that balance exists, if an energy has strength enough, one can learn how to pull the threads, so to speak. Tolkien was the first to gain this power.

'But Sauron found an unguarded Gate. He slipped into the Void, and bled into it, thus creating that balance within himself. He took Arda's Time, and through nefarious means he coerced it to take a certain form, the Ruling Ring. There were nineteen other rings made, gifted amongst the great of the races. Those who wore them were bound to the power of the One, their threads interlaced. Only those who had great will and strength of mind were able to withstand the terrible forces that worked against them.'

'But, what does this have to do with me and my watch?' Jenny interjected querulously. Gates and Voids and threads and flows and rings were all very well, but bewilderment over where she fit into their verbal puzzle was eroding her patience.

'Everything.' Lea had been prepared to answer but it was Legolas who spoke, leaning against the balustrade and staring vacantly into the verdant hollow. 'Tolkien was the first of those we call the Timekeepers, those in whom the balance exists. He established the line after the final war in which Sauron was defeated. Thus far, there have been three. And your aunt was wedded to the second.'

A dagger of ice twisted in Jenny's belly, sending cold thrills through every fibre. As precise as though she viewed it, the memory of the photo Sean had found discarded in old newspapers rose. Her aunt, and the man on Muriel's arm – the handsome stranger with the intense gaze, wearing mystery like a mantle. The same man whose tombstone rose, a silent sentinel of black and white granite, to mark his final resting place; the grave beside him occupied by his wife.

'That timepiece, Jenny, is something I aided in the making of. Timepiece is perhaps not the most appropriate word to name it, but that writing, each letter, has a connection to every thread between the worlds. In good sooth, it is the seam that holds us together.

'Time is capricious in its loyalties, and we cannot rely on it to be an ally. Already it is turning against us. There are only few paths left to us, and we have decided upon one. You have knowledge of the One Ring and its fate.'

'Well, I hadn't gotten that far but you've ruined the ending for me,' Jenny replied with weak humour. It all sounded so ridiculous, so incomprehensible that she did not know where she stood. Derisive laughter was a pressing weight behind her lips, but she was careful not to give it freedom. The sheer solemnity of the men, the pleading earnestness in their eyes was making it difficult to differentiate between truth and fiction. Considering what they were explaining to her, did a difference exist at all? Or were they two terms applied to something misconstrued?

There was no laughter in Legolas' darkling eyes as he gazed down on her. 'Time oft repeats itself,' he said, subdued.

'You mean you want to go marching all the way down to some place which should only exist in a book, and throw my watch into an imaginary volcano to save the world?' Jenny clasped the timepiece at her breast, afraid he might wrest it from her.

'No.' A slight smile alleviated the severity of the prince's comely features. 'We want to go marching down to a place that exists beyond a book, to forge a new ring and thus keep the world from tearing apart.'

* * *

For those in a state of confusion, _sainardhoni _is something I got from my trusty Sindarin dictionary and roughly means "of the other world.' 


End file.
